It's the Same Old Thing Over and Over

Yesterday I came across an old book entitled American Revisionists. When I started reading it, I came upon a tired old refrain. The president lied to get us into a war. His lies were meant to make his friends in big business richer. It was none of our business. The people we were fighting for were the real enemies and their freedom was not worth the blood of our soldiers. Our president lied to us and betrayed us to start a war that killed young men for no reason. Try and guess who they were talking about.

It could have been Lyndon B. Johnson. Vietnam was certainly an unpopular war that invigorated the anti-war movement like none we had seen since the 1860s. For that matter it could have been Abraham Lincoln who had to brave angry torrents of public opinion when he revised the meaning of the Civil War to include the freedom for slaves. Joe Kennedy, father of John, Teddy, and Robert, held those same attitudes about Franklin D. Roosevelt his entire life.

The target this time was Woodrow Wilson. He led us into World War I after an escalating series of moves by Germany to threaten the United States and cut off its trade with Europe at a pivotal point of vulnerability for the Allies. Until Germany started sinking our ships and trying to talk Mexico into a war with us, Wilson urged all Americans to keep an open mind. His goal going into the war was a breathtaking crusade to use American power to change the face of Europe and end their seemingly eternal cycle of warfare. The end of fighting saw the British and French ignore Wilson's ideals and impose upon Germany a treaty guaranteed to start another war in two decades.

Intellectuals and left wing editors slammed Wilson after research showed the Allies more guilty than originally thought and Germany to be more foolish than evil. Some of the criticism was valid, but by the 30s it reached a shrill crescendo. Some intellectuals blamed France for the war and Wilson for supporting them. France actually tried to avoid the war and was drawn in when Germany invaded it! Emotion had supplanted reason and it started affecting policy. Trouble in Europe inspired Congress to pass a series of acts to restrain Franklin Roosevelt's hand. Some even proposed that the US never enter a war without a national referendum.

Unfortunately this tied FDR's hands at the very moment that he needed freedom to act against the most deadly enemy we had ever faced. Years in which US action might have cowed Adolf Hitler were spent by FDR patiently undoing the damage caused by hysterical intellectuals and their effect upon the public. The lesson we learned between 1941-45 was that the world is smaller and potentially more dangerous. Our president needs to act to forestall aggression, not wait until it hits our shores.

The legacy of the Bush presidency is still playing out. Certainly he headed off a potentially disastrous problem that Saddam Hussein's psychopathic sons would have presented. At the same time he demonstrated the American will to act that enhanced our credibility among those that hate us. History should reflect that as a positive step in our history.

Supporting Local Businesses

I went back "home" for Easter to the town where I grew up, Portsmouth, OH. It seems much more vibrant, new restaurants are coming in, a movie theater was built, stores are expanding, and, my favorite store, Steve and Barry's added a location in the Portsmouth area. The population of Portsmouth has not grown in any significant way. The town has little industry to speak of, having once been a large railroad hub and steel center on the Ohio River. So what is propelling the changes in the area? Small business people. The same guys/gals that owned small stores and "mom and pop" restaurants while I lived there are now able to re-invest in the community. One group of brothers have continued to expand their small restaurant business to include franchises with Wendy's, BW-3s, and others. Together with other investors a once vacant area near a railroad track now features several restaurants, a business center and a movie theater. Other small business owners purchased property vacated by a Wal-Mart relocation and recruited new stores to fill the space (like Steve and Barry's). When I was growing up, we always traveled to do school shopping. With the addition of several clothing stores, locals are now able to shop locally, saving their gas money and time.

Keep this in mind the next time that you are shopping at Wal-Mart or heading to Hagerstown. Have you looked at the local small business stores for what you need? In Keyser, it is probably not possible to find everything that you need in local stores, but you can certainly buy some of the items that you need from local small business people. You may pay a little more, but small, local business owners take their profits and re-invest in offering more items and better locations. Just like you and me, they want to provide their children and grand-children with more opportunities and a better life than they had. That will lead, as it has in Portsmouth, to more variety more jobs and even more investment in the community.

US Falls to 22nd Most Stable Country

The US fell to 22nd in Jane's Country Risk Assessment which ranks the 235 countries and independent territories in the world on risk and prosperity. The top ten were the Vatican, Sweden, Luxembourg, Monaco, Gibraltar, San Marino, the United Kingdom, Liechtenstein, the Netherlands and the Irish Republic. The bottom ten included the West Bank and Gaza, Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan, the Ivory Coast, Haiti, Zimbabwe, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic.

The top 30 countries in the world are considered stable. The US scored 93 out of a possible 100. Christian Le Mière, managing editor of Jane's Country Risk Assessment stated the reason for the drop to 22nd was "partly because of the proliferation of small arms owned by Americans and the threat to the population posed by the flow of drugs from across the Mexican border."

While I agree with the study that says our border security increases the risk to Americans. It is not just from drugs as it allows for the possibility for terrorist entering the county. I strongly disagree that gun owning American's increase the risk. The facts are that those citizens exercising their 2nd Amendments add to the security of America.

This study is flawed. Most of the top 10 are the worlds smallest nations. They are not exactly secure. Consider that when Germany invaded Western Europe in 1940, Luxembourg was nothing more than a speed bump in the Blitzkrieg race to the Channel. With the exception of the United Kingdom the rest of the counties in the top ten primarily rely on the goodwill of one country to maintain their freedom. That country would be the United States.

The study does not take into effect the stabilizing effect the United States has on the world. The study is flawed in that respect.

Greear says legislative effort to slow Attorney General did not go far enough

For Immediate Release
March 25, 2008

Contact:
Greear for AG Committee
Suzette Raines, 304-437-1306

Huntington, WV – Charleston attorney and former member of the House of Delegates, Dan Greear, spoke to the Cabell County Republican Women's Club today as he campaigns for the office of Attorney General. The meeting will take place at noon at the Pullman Plaza Hotel in Huntington.

Greear discussed the constant struggle the West Virginia Legislature has encountered with Attorney General Darrell McGraw. McGraw has dispersed settlement money at his own discretion rather than allowing the Legislature to appropriate the money as is their constitutional duty.

In response to the conflict with the Attorney General, H.B. 104 was passed during a recent Special Session and requires McGraw to inform the Legislature of potential monetary settlements.

Greear stated it will not prevent McGraw from employing his normal practice of distributing settlement money, but will only require him to disclose that information to the Legislature. Greear praised the Governor and Legislature for taking the first step, but said HB 104 did not go nearly far enough.

"The Attorney General should be solving legal problems, not creating them," said Greear. "Once again, McGraw is forcing the Legislature to pass legislation to try to curb his abuses. Considering all the problems our state faces, the Legislature should not be forced to fix the messes of a constitutional officer," said Greear.

"This bill was supported by Democrats and Republicans alike. I believe the bi-partisan support says a great deal about the dissatisfaction with McGraw, but much more must be done to reign in his abuses," added Greear.

Greear is a lifelong resident of Kanawha County, graduating from South Charleston High School in 1986 as a National Merit Scholar. He graduated from the WVU School of Law in the spring of 1992 where he also served as associate manuscript editor for the West Virginia Law Review. He served in the West Virginia House of Delegates representing Kanawha County’s 30th District in 1995 and 1996. Dan currently resides in South Charleston with his wife Amy, a social worker for Kanawha Hospice Care, and their two children, Joshua, 8 and Ben, 6.

Why Obama's Pastor Matters

I believe that I belong to a generation of Americans ("Generation X") who have moved beyond the race issue that has consumed this nation from its inception to the present. I, and those I associate with, embrace and live the ideals of racial equality; indeed, I personally have never known any other way. I grew up in a mixed-race neighborhood in New Jersey before moving to West Virginia 15 years ago.

The embrace of the Obama campaign by a large and deep cross-section of Americans indicates that there are many, especially among the young, who feel--as I do--that race is a non-issue in the selection of a President.

That is why Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama's spiritual mentor and adviser, matters.

Wright, to get to the point, is a racist. For kickers, he's also a loon, believing as he does that the U.S. government invented the AIDS virus. And as West Virginia Democrats and independents consider their primary election options, consider whether you would vote for someone who joined, as an adult, Fred Phelps' "World Church of the Creator", and made annual contributions that exceed West Virginia's average annual income. Phelps' great contributions to society include protesting Iraq war funerals, in addition to his protest at the Sago Mine memorial a couple of years ago, as a messenger of "God's wrath" against the decadence of America.

And that's the problem with Obama and Wright. Obama put his money where Wright's mouth was. And, in the great scheme of things, Wright is no different that Phelps. Would you vote for a member of Phelps' church for President? Or would you consider it a sufficient lapse in judgment as to lose your vote? To ask the question is to answer it.

Gas Price Protesting

I got an e mail from a family member yesterday. It was a forward that was trying to organize a gas price protest. I usually get these about once a month. They are usually pretty similar in that they target oil companies as the culprit if pricing and seek to diminish their profits by boycotting gas for a day. This one was different in that it targeted corporations instead of the whole industry.

Either way, the resentment is misplaced. Any action ought to be directed at incumbents and candidates for Congress. I sent a response to the e mail that read:

The problem is not the oil companies. The reason they jack prices up is because of supply constraints. They do profit a lot off of it, but the high prices keep demand low enough to prevent a shortage. Only one problem would be worse than high prices and that is complete supply cut off. The oil companies set prices as a response to the very complex situation that the US legal system has created. There are four things that Congress can do to get gas prices down.

First, drill in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge and reduce our dependence on foreign supplies. Jimmy Carter shut that down because they thought a few oil wells would endanger reindeer and bear populations. Coal mining has not done that here and oil wells are less intrusive.

Second, cut the red tape necessary to refine oil. We have not built a new refinery since the 1970s in the US and we have lost a few. Much of our oil is now refined in Venezuela, a country led by an anti-American madman.

Also we have a bewildering set of laws that vary from state to state on the cleanliness of gasoline. Refineries have to create a wide variety of blends to match state and local laws. They have to determine the supply and demand necessities for all those localities and that is impossible to do. Why not take the best environmental standard and make that the national standard?

Last, phase out oil fired power plants. We have resources at home that can run our power plants; we certainly do not need to keep importing oil for that purpose. West Virginia itself, between coal, natural gas, and wind, can produce a lot more power than it can possibly consume. All we have to do is construct the plants. If we are smart, we will allow them to be built here in West Virginia near the sources and export the power out.

The first two points came directly from John Raese's campaign for US Senate and they make sense both in terms of our economy and security. Combatting high gas prices while maintaining a strong economy means looking at the complex relationships between supply and demand as well as the obstacles placed in the way of oil companies who desire to meet that demand.