Propaganda in the Morning Paper

I guess I picked the wrong day to get out of bed.

I was browsing through one of the regional newspapers, the Ft. Smith (AR) Times-Record, and came across today's choice for their editorial cartoon, a Joe Heller composition from the Green Bay (WI) Press Gazette. I understand why many newspaper do not do their own editorial cartoons: cartoonists require paychecks and there aren't that many good ones to pick from (or so it would seem). Yet there are choices from among the many who allow their work to be used, and some of them, you might think, would be focusing on the issues of the day instead of trying to "refocus" our attention on the sins of the past:


Notice the lapel pin: GOP Spending 2001-2008.

Where do you start? First, the pin should read, 2001-2006. Since the mid-term congressional elections in 2006, the Democrats have controlled Congress AND spending. No one wants us to remember that. These are Pelosi-Reid-Bush deficits, the result of truly bipartisan pork. That includes the execrable $750 billion TARP fund that Democrats were only too eager to seek GOP support on.

Second, since the ascension of The One, we've now added over $2 trillion in new spending, anticipating a budget deficit this year alone of $1.7 trillion, which is more than four times larger than the biggest Bush deficit. Most Republicans have abstained from this spending, having discovered a latent talent for fiscal responsibility. Better late than never! What is taking place is without factual doubt clearly a work of the left-leaning Democrat party.

I would expect socialist Green Bay to applaud an editorial cartoon pinning "spending disease" and hypocrisy on Republicans. But I think the Arkansas newspaper is seriously out of step with its readership. Worse, the column beneath the cartoon by John Brummett of the Arkansas News Bureau (whatever the hell that is) dumps on Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a conservative Republican, for telling the nation that the solution to our problems is not the bigger -- massively, humongously bigger -- government that President Barack Obama is creating. Asks Brummett:

"What's Bobby Jindal's better idea? I guess he'd cut our taxes and give us all an Ayn Rand book."

Well, Mr. Brummett, that's not such a bad idea. The tax cuts alone would provide real relief to productive Americans, and a bit of education in capitalism a la Ayn Rand would counter-act this suicidal notion currently prevailing in this country that the solution to over-spending and big government is more over-spending and big government. We cannot continue to punish those who risk and build while rewarding those who merely criticize and say "gimme."

Only those who do not understand the nature of productive work and the lessons of history can afford to be so clueless.

And I thought the Tulsa World was a bad paper.

Yes, there are those in both parties who are spending hypocrites, and each and every one of them should be removed from office, by the voters, at the earliest possible opportunity. Meanwhile, our nation's newspapers should do more than merely act as the cheerleaders for the socialists who are taking us to Destination Ugly.

A 'Savior-Based Economy'?

South Carolina's governor, Mark Sanford, understands the threat of federal intervention in the economy.

“A problem that was created by building up of too much debt will not be solved with yet more debt,” Gov. Mark Sanford said Sunday, making a reference to the federal deficit spending that will likely finance the federal stimulus package.

“We’re moving precipitously close to what I would call a savior-based economy,” Sanford also said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union.

The South Carolina Republican said such an economy is “what you see in Russia or Venezuela or Zimbabwe or places like that where it matters not how good your product is to the consumer but what your political connection is to those in power.”

Which is precisely what the progressives among us really want: the government as supreme arbiter of who succeeds and who fails, not individual initiative.

God, Government & Small Farmers

One of Reagan's oft-used punch lines was that the scariest phrase an American could hear are the words: "Hello. I'm from the government, and I'm here to help." Government, he said, was not the solution; government was the problem.

I thought of this today as I read this article on the legal troubles of a family-run food cooperative in Ohio where, they say, a state agent of the agriculture department created an "entrapment" situation that led to a SWAT-team style raid on their farm near LaGrange. The gist of the dispute is that the family has run a food co-operative, which is legal as long as they do not charge money for distribution of their produce, but the state insists that they take out a retail food license. This would not only involve cost but would bring down various regulatory requirements that would put their little cooperative out of business.

The family has friends who are helping, including an outfit called The Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund.

Pete Kennedy of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund said the case was government "overreaching" and was designed more to intimidate and "frighten people into believing that they cannot provide food for themselves."

"This is an example where, once again, the government is trying to deny people their inalienable, fundamental right to produce and consume the foods of their choice," said Gary Cox, general counsel for the FTCLDF. "The purpose of our complaint is to correct that wrong."

Apparently this is not the first such raid in the state. If the story reflects an accurate picture of what is taking place, it should concern every American who values individual freedoms. According to one related blog post:

"Agents began rifling through all of the family's possessions, a task that lasted hours and resulted in a complete upheaval of every private area in the home. Many items were taken that were not listed on the search warrant. The family was not permitted a phone call, and they were not told what crime they were being charged with. They were not read their rights. Over ten thousand dollars worth of food was taken, including the family's personal stock of food for the coming year."

When did government begin taking such a personal interest in farmers? During the Great Depression, when government powers over agriculture were expanded to a vast extent, much of it on the excuse that it was protecting the health of consumers. But it was also an excuse to limit the production and distribution of various types of animal and vegetable products in order to centrally plan supply and demand. There was nothing too large or too small for the FDR Administration (and administrations to follow) to regulate and oversee.

Over the years the growth of corporate farming has only made it more difficult for the small farmers of America as an incestuous relationship has grown between CorpAg and Government. Billions of subsidies flow to corporations that control seed stocks and purchases of farmers' goods, and in return CorpAg sends millions of dollars of lobbying monies and political contributions back to the state capitals and Washington.

So let us review the concept of constitutional rights: God gives individuals the right to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness. In the Constitution We the People assign some of these rights to the government to administer on our behalf (but not to be used against us). Since government actually has no rights of its own, no "extra" rights created by God given to it exclusively, We cannot lend to government anything we ourselves do not have. Thus, if I cannot tell my neighbor, Bob, where to sell his milk or corn, then it is a damn certain thing that the government has no business telling him how, or even if, he can do it.

This is how out of whack we have allowed our system to devolve.

It was the Almighty who to our proto-parents made a covenant, saying, "Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all the living things that move on the earth. ... See, I give you every seed-bearing plant all over the earth and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit on it to be your food; and to all the animals of the land, all the birds of the air, and all the living creatures that crawl on the ground, I give all the green plants for food." (Gen. 1: 28-30)

To paraphrase, what God has given, let no man (or group of men) rend asunder. You may not care much about the issue now, but if in the future you are really, really hungry, and you wonder to what part of the globe all the small farmers in wandered off, you may wish that we had done a better job of protecting the God-given rights of American farmers.