PAGE 42

My First-Hand Look atOccupy Wall Street

MICHELLE FIELDS

PAGE 8.

The State of theConservative Movement

JACK HUNTER

PAGE 32

Year of YouthTraining Feature

ABIGAIL ALGER

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'THANJUST j'N(QPE"

AN EXCERPT FROM SEN. JIM DEMINT'S NEW BOOKON THE HARD ~OAD AHEAD FOR LIMITED GOVERNMENT

~~UNG AMERICANSiarLIBERTY

~ www.yaliberty.org

MiSSION STATEMENTThe mission of Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) is to train, educate, and mobilizeyouth activists committed to "wuiaing on principle". Our goal is to cast the leadersof tomorrow and reclaim the policies, candidates, and direction of our government.

STATEMENT OF PRINCIPLESWe are the Young Americans for Liberty (YAL). As Americans we recognize the God-givennatural rights of life, liberty, and property set forth by our Founding Fathers. Our countrywas created to protect the freedoms of the individual and is directed by we the people.

We recognize that freedom deserves responsibility, and therefore we hold ourselves to a high moralcharacter and conduct. Integrity emphasizes our stance towards action. Principle defines our outlooktowards government. Peace and prosperity drives our ambitions towards our countrymen.

We inherit a corrupt, coercive world that has lost respect for voluntary action. Our governmenthas failed and dragged our country into moral decay. The political class dominates the agendawith a violent, callous, controlling grip. And, for this we do not stand.

We welcome limited government conservatives, classical liberals,and libertarians who trust in the creed we set forth:

WE, as Young Americans for Liberty believe:THAT government is the negation of liberty;THAT voluntary action is the only ethical behavior;THAT respect for the individual's property is fundamental to a peaceful society;THAT violent action is only warranted in defense of one's property;TfL>\T the jndividual owns his/her body and is therefore responsible for his/her actions;THAT society is a responsibility of the people, not the government.

JOIN TODAY. START A CHAPTER. DONATE.

~yaliberty.org

CONTENTSFebruary2012/ Issue 08

8 Ron Paul and the State of the 4 Moving ForwardConservative Movement By Jack Hunter with a New GenerationThe Texas Republican is a force to reckon with in 2012 By Jeff Frazee

10 Blame Corporatism, not Capitalism By Benjamin Levine20 The 'Silent' President

By Bonnie KristianBig government plus big business equals big trouble

Calvin Coolidge's Lessons for the Modern GOP

12 The Tea Parties Bold Plan for Budget Reform By Matt Kibbe 22 Life and LibertyWhat if we made a budget plan by actually asking Americans what they want? By Marian U'ard

Fighting for the unborn the legal and

16 Now or Never: Saving America from Economic Collapsepractical way: Without DC

An excerpt from Jim DeMint's newest book 30 Government and the ArtsBy Joseph Diedrich

24 The Evolution of Liberalism By Devon DownesAn artist's argument againstfederal patronage

Now, this is the story about how a word got flipped, turned upside down36 In America. the Law is Not King

27 What Develops? By Caitlyn BatesBy Jayel Aheram

Top-down approaches don't help Africa With Liberty and Justice for Some ...by Glenn Greenwald

32 Year of Youth Training Feature By Abigail Alger 38 Precepts and OperationHow to build, maintain, and use a mass email list By Brian Beyer

The Founders' Key: The Dive and Natural

34 When Bigger Isn't Better By Jeremy DavisConnection Between the Declaration

and the ConstitutionNow or Never: Saving America from Economic Collapse by Jim Demint

42 A Reporter's First-Hand Look By Michelle FieldsAt the Occupy Wall Street Protests

PublisherJeff Frazee

Managing EditorBonnie Kristian

Editorial DirectorDaniel McCarthy

Deputy EditorEdward King

LayoutMatthew Holdridge

Krystee Miller

IllustrationShane Helm

Justin Page Wood

Contributing EditorsJack Hunter, W James Antle III,WesMessamore, George Hawley,

Trent Hill, Andrew Sharp, Mark Thoburn

Young American Revolution is the officialpublication of Young Americans for Liberty(w,ww.YALiberty.org). Subscriptions are $50for One yeat(4 issues). Checks may be madeout to Young Americans for Liberty andsent to PO Box 2751, Arlington, VA 22202.

Young American Revolution accepts letters to theeditor and freelance submissions. Letters sbould

between 50 and 300 words. Submissions shouldbetween 700 and 2400 words, Letters and

submissions may be edited for length and content.Write to us at contact@yalibetty.org or PO Box2751, ,l\..tlington, VA 22202.

Young Americans for Liberty grew out of the 2008presidential campaign's Students for Ron Paul. Sincethen, our network bas grown to more then 300chapters, 3,800 dues-paying members, and 26,000

/acrivists nationwide.

.,;rbe mission of young Americans for Liberty (YAL)is to identify, train, educate, and mobilize youth

·:-activists committed to "winning on principle."Our goal is to cast the leaders of tomorrow and'"eclairn the policies, candidates, and direction of our'government,

come limited government conservatives,1 liberals, and libertarians 'who trust in the

creed we set forth.

expressed in Young American Revolutionnot necessarily the views of Young Americans

Crpyrigb/2012 YO.ngAm,rimns for Ub<r!ynth

MOVING FORWARD WITH A NEW GENERATION

Here at YoungAmericans for

Liberty, our missionis to identify, train,educate, and mobilizeyouth activists com-mitted to "winning onprinciple." Our goal isto cast the leaders oftomorrow and reclaimthe policies, candi-dates, and direction ofour government.

Thanks to yoursupport, in 2011 YAL YAL Executive Director Jeff Frazeemade great strides inreaching these am-bitious targets. In fact, YAL is now thelargest, fastest-growing, and most activeliberty youth organization in the country!

The publication of Young American Rev-olution (YAR) is an important facet of oureducational programs.

YAR serves as a primary outreach toolfor the 289 YAL chapters spreading theliberty message nationwide. It also offersa venue for up-and-coming writers of theliberty movement to hone their craft, theirarticles featured alongside the leaders ofthe liberty movement. This eighth issue ofYAR accomplishes both of those goals.

Our headliner is an excerpt from Sena-tor Jim DeMint's new book, Now. or Never.With Senators Rand Paul and Mike Lee,Sen. DeMint is part of a small but dedi-cated cadre of principled representativesleading the fight for limited government inthe Senate. Now or Never showcases De-Mint's commitment to ultimately eliminat-ing the national debt and returning fiscalsanity to Washington for the first time in100 years. He leaves no sacred cows onthe table, reminding his fellow conserva-tives that overseas wars inevitably costmoney-and lots of it.

Sen. DeMint's arguments are comple-mented by pieces from FreedomWorkspresident Matt Kibbe and YAL's own Di-rector of Outreach, Jack Hunter. Kibbetackles the task of explaining the sweepingbut careful cuts of the Tea Party Budgetproposal, which far outstrips more timid

4March 2012

efforts by PresidentObama and the SuperCommittee to rear-range the deck chairsas the Titanic beginsits descent.

Hunter exam-ines the state of themodern conservativemovement and therole RepresentativeRon Paul's presiden-tial campaigns haveplayed in changingthe conservative dia-logue. He argues thatit remains to be seen

whether the central purpose of the con-servative movement will remain in flux,swayed by opinion polls and the ideologi-cal movements of the left.

The supporting articles delve furtherinto this issue's central question: Whatdoes it mean to support limited govern-ment today? Do modern libertarians andconservatives stand for more than opposi-tion to President Obama and congressio-nal Democrats? If so, what does that looklike in practice?

Keep reading for an exploration of thehistorical and philosophical roots of lim-ited government in America-as a well asdetailed looks at what it may mean to sup-port liberty in light of corporate bailouts,Occupy Wall Street, abortion, and foreignaid. ~R Issue 8 also includes reviewsof three important new books, a Year ofYouth feature article on practical politics,and a profile of humorist Dave Barry.

And when you're done, come visit YALat www.YALiberty.org to keep tabs on ourcampus and campaign activism nation-wide-activism in which we hope you'lljoin us.

For liberty,

9fl~Executive Director

A YAL CHAPTER

When you start a YALchapter you recieve free materials to participatein campus activism. guidance and support from YAI.:sleadership team,and an opportunity to prove yourself as a leader in the liberty movement.

Active YAL chapters develop a reputation on campus, earn mediaattention. and spread the message of liberty to fellow classmates.Top-performing chapters compete for prizes and recognition withinYA.I:snetwork. This is your opportunity to make a name for yourselfand your school!

Learn More at www.YALiberty.org/chapters

:1RON PAUL AND THE STATE OF THE,

CONSERVAT )(OVEMENT

Ron Paul speaking to supporters at a "victory rally" following the2012 New Hampshire Republican primary in Manchester, NewHampshire.

The Texas Republican is a force to reckon

As of this writing there are threeRepublican presidential front-

runners. First is former Massachu-setts Governor Mitt Romney, whoin addition to being on both sides ofmost issues, supported TARP andgave Barack Obama the blueprintfor national healthcare. There is for-mer Pennsylvania Rick Santorum, ofwhom The Washington Examiner'sTimothy P. Carney writes: "As amember of Senate leadership, San-torum literally was an agent of theGOP establishment during passageof No Child Left Behind, the ex-pansion of Medicare, and the over-spending of the Bush era."

And then there's Ron Paul. What-ever happens by the time this is pub-lished, the only candidate that still matters will be Ron Paul. Thisis not an advertisement or endorsement for Paul's presidentialcampaign. It is an admission of the current state of conservatism.

When Paul ran for president in 2008, polls showed that Amer-leans-at-large were worried about an increasingly bad economy,angry at Washington for bailing out Wall Street and weary of theIraq War. Yet GOP primary voters found themselves defending aRepublican president (Bush) who was on the unpopular side ofall three issues, supporting a Republican nominee (McCain) whoagreed with him, and having to choose from a Republican fieldof candidates virtually indistinguishable from their president, theirnominee and each other, except one (Ron Paul).

Polls today show that Americans at large are most worriedabout a bad economy; Obama's high negatives indicate a persistentdistrust and disgust with Washington; and this president's expan-sive foreign policy remains as unpopular as his predecessor's. In2008 independents broke big for Obama. In 2012, independentsare mad at Obama for making us broke.

2012 GOP primary voters have mostly found a field of candi-dates willing to bash the White House for basically doing the samethings these candidates once defended a Republican presidentdoing. In fact, most of the potential 2012 Republican nominees

8March 2012

have been as guilty of contributingto big government as the presidentthey criticize.

During the periods when con-servatives find themselves not de-fending big government Republi-cans and instead choose to stressthe need for limited governmentand constitutional fidelity, theyecho the sentiments of Ron Paul.The difference is Paul never chang-es his sentiment.

When conservatives are notdefending big government Repub-licans and instead choose to talkabout the need to eliminate debtand deficits, they are repeating thephilosophy of Ron Paul. The dif-ference is Paul never changes his

philosophy.Paul's conservative consistency remains has remained true,

even when-and perhaps especially when-his fellow conserva-tives disagree with him. When conservatives attack Paul for hisnon-interventionist foreign policy views, the Texas congressmanis quick to remind them that it is mathematically impossible toreduce the debt or deficits without addressing Pentagon spending.Cutting NPR, Planned Parenthood and earmarks will do nothingto effectively reduce the debt, no matter how much each mightexcite conservatives emotionally. Likewise, ignoring the need formilitary spending cuts will continue to help sustain and grow thedebt, no matter how emotionally attached some conservatives arein their support for maintaining the status quo.

Obsessing over Obama's birth certificate might have been funfor some conservatives-but it only distracts from the UnitedStates' economy's impending death certificate, says Paul. Excite-ment over a reality TV star with a bad comb-over like DonaldTrump may hold conservatives' attention for the moment-an-other moment wasted, says Paul, by not addressing the stark real-ity that is our collapsing dollar and economy. Many conservativesdraw a battle line between Republicans and Democrats. Paul drawshis line between those who support limited government and those

in both parties who consider it unlimited.Indeed, Ron Paul is the conservative constant in US politics.

To the extent that the American Right is consistently conservative,it is generally in line with Paul. To the extent that the AmericanRight gets distracted from conservative principles-typically in thename of Republican partisanship or some emotional attachmentto a particular aspect of statism conservatives generally like-itfinds itself at war with Paul.

In 2012, the Right has been significantly less at war with Paul.Reported Time last year:

(paul) is still defining the GOP race ... When Republi-can heavies like Newt Gingrich and (Rick) Perry bash theFed's monetary policy, he mocks them as latecomers tohis party. ''Who would have thought the former Speakerof the House would come out for 'Audit the Fed?'" Paulsays to deafening applause in Concord. "Now we havea Southern governor. I can't remember his name" - awry reference to Perry, who suggested it would be al-most "treasonous" for Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke topump more money into the economy - "[who] realizestalking about the Fed is good too."

The Christian Science Monitor noted the "Ron Paul Effect":So what, ultimately, might be The Ron Paul Effect?

For one, he's already changed the conversation toa degree - in Republican debates and beyond. "The can-didates talk more like [paul] on taxes and governmentthan they did in 2008," says Rob Richie, executive di-rector of FairVote, an advocacy group in Takoma Park,Md ... Paul has campaigned on cutting $1 trillion in fed-eral spending - something that has perhaps upped theante on how aggressively other candidates say they'll cut.

Several polls have asked about whether like-ly GOP primary voters have a favorable view of return-ing the US monetary system to the gold standard - areflection of how much Paul has championed this idea.He's also brought to the fore more scrutiny of the Fed-eral Reserve. Paul has also tapped into deep-seated dis-satisfaction with the cost - in dollars and human life - ofthe past decade's foreign wars ...

The CSM added:For young potential voters - frustrated with stu-

dent debt, unemployment, and gridlock in Washington- Paul is the buzz these days ... Of the under-30 votein the Iowa caucuses, 48 percent supported Paul. .. He'salso winning over some people with tea party roots.

One of Paul's recent endorsements in New Hamp-shire came from Jane Aitken, co-founder of the NewHampshire Tea Party Coalition ... When people suggestPaul is too extreme to be president, her response? "Ifyou are on an extreme collision course you need extremecorrection."

The American Conservative Editor Daniel McCarthy put Paul'srevolutionary influence into context after the Iowa Caucus by not-ing not only the ideological shift happening in the GOP, but alsohow that shift is generational:

Five years ago, no one, not even Congressman Paul,would have imagined that 21 percent of voters in a hotlycontested Republican caucus would support the Texas

congressman's brand of antiwar, constitutional conser-vatism and libertarianism. Paul didn't just improve onhis 2008 showing last night, he's brought his philosophyfrom an asterisk in the Republican Party of George WBush to as much as a fifth of the vote in the GOP of2012 ...

More significant than the overall percentage Paulclaimed in Iowa, however, is the 48 percent he won ofthe under-30 vote. This augurs more than just a changein the factional balance within the GOP. It's suggestiveof a generational realignment in American politics. Thefact that many of these young people do not considerthemselves Republican is very much the point: Paul's de-tractors cite that as a reason to discount them, but whatit really means is that the existing ideological configu-ration of U.S. politics doesn't fit the rising generation.They're not Republicans, but they're voting in a Repub-lican primary: at one time, that same description appliedto Southerners, social conservatives, and Reagan Demo-crats, groups that were not part of the traditional GOPcoalition and whose participation completely remade theparty.

Which brings us to the current state of conservatism. As Me-Carthy notes, Paul is unquestionably remaking the RepublicanParty whether the party establishment likes it or not.

With an overarching concern for limiting government and elim-inating the debt, the now widespread conservative condemnationsof "Keynesian economics" and attacks on Ben Bernanke and theFederal Reserve would've been unthinkable in 2008. Today, moreAmericans than ever seem willing to accept substantive entitlementreform and even oppose raising the debt ceiling, reflecting popularsentiments noticeably more radical than anything that could havebeen conceivable just a few years ago. Not all conservatives are inagreement with Paul's foreign policy views, but they are significant-ly more open to them, especially within the context of criticizinga Democratic president'S seemingly foolish interventions and theabsurdity of borrowing money from China to pay for them.

In 2012, Paul's poll numbers have equaled or exceeded thoseof the perceived major potential candidates, his fundraising abili-ties equaled or exceeded those candidates and the once perennialpolitical outsider has now become a household name. More im-portantly, when it comes to the issues-most conservatives andperhaps most Americans are finding themselves increasingly inagreement with Paul.

Ron Paul is the conservative constant in American politics. Pauldoes not change; the conservative movement does. The currentstate of American conservatism cannot be understood withoutunderstanding Paul and his influence. Paul's GOP critics haven'tunderstood conservatism in any substantive sense for a long time.To the degree that the Republican Party understands, accepts oracquiesces to Paul is to the degree that limited government couldbecome a reality in our time.

Jack Hunter (also known by his moniker the "Southern Avenger") is acolumnist jor The American Conservative and assisted Sen. Rand Paulwith his book The Tea Party Goes to Washington.

9Young American Revolution

BLAME CORPORATISM, NOT CAPITALISMBig Government Plus Big Business Equals Big Trouble

Benjamin Levine

Icannot begin to count the times that I have heard my peersblame capitalism for the our current economic crisis. Blame the

wealthy, blame business, blame greed, they argue.Of course, some of the wealthy, some businesses, and some

greed contributed to where we are in America today. However,in a deep contrast to the claims of many statists both in Congressand Zuccotti Park, this did not occur in the context of a free mar-ket. Rather, it was in a crony capitalistic atmosphere where Wash-ington was sleeping with Wall Street, where banks were "too big tofail," and where the middle-class got stuck paying the bill so thosewith ties to the federal government could emerge unharmed.. Make no mistake, this was not capitalism. This was corporat-ism. And we are still living in that environment.. . Corporatism is not all that difficult of a concept. Essentially,it is when those in government use their power to make laws thatsystematically favor certain businesses or industries over others.Often this operates in a quid pro quo manner: You scratch myback, I'll scratch yours ... with taxpayer's credit cards. Though Idon't wish to conjure unwarranted bogeymen, this not a far cryfrom fascism-and it is increasingly a cornerstone of the Ameri-can political economy.

This corporatist environment, however, is nothing new. Infact, it is almost as old as our country: Big business and big gov-ernment have long worked together to ensure their power doesnot fade and their wealth does not diminish. The relationshipblossomed most significandy under a president who is now re-vered as one of the greatest to ever serve, namely Franklin DelanoRoosevelt.

In The RooseveltMyth by John T. Flynn, a contemporary of FDRwho initially supporter the president only to later reject his cen-tral planning, America's relationship with corporatism is stated inno uncertain terms: "The United States boasts one of the mostsignificant corporatist arrangements in the world in its alliance be-tween the Federal Reserve and the big banks." It is undoubtedlytrue: The power of the Federal Reserve to act as a virtual ATMfor corporations embodies our modern corporatist America. Tobe sure, this Rooseveltian tradition has been upheld by everypresident since he died in office. This inevitably corrupt relation-ship, so far from the free market as to make conflation of the twolaughable, is the source of our economic woes.

10March 2012

While it is true that subsidies to corporations and unfair taxbreaks are both key aspects of corporatism, they are often timesmasked with a "capitalistic" approach. Washington makes it seemlike these types of investment or relief are actually "pro-market"or at least "pro-business."

That is not an honest measure in the slightest. Yet one doesnot need to search behind the cloak of government's free-marketrhetoric to see how Washington practices the immoral system ofcorporatism. Indeed, within the past few years our federal gov-ernment has been so bold as to explicitly define their corporatistpolicies as such.

Before pointing out the obvious instances of corporatism inAmerica, I want to draw a brief analogy. In a classroom, the stu-dents that work the hardest, study the hardest, and, of course,who have the natural ability to learn usually earn the best grades.It would be extremely unfair if at the end of the semester theteacher told her classroom that because one student'~ parents aregood friends of hers, he'll be getting a high mark. In no waywould this be considered an acceptable way to delegate grades.Rather, honest hard work and results should dictate how studentsfare in the classroom.

This is an imperfect analogy, as all analogies eventually are, butit accurately encompasses the corrupt spirit found in corporatism.The national mythology of America dictates that if an individualworks hard enough and puts forth his best effort then almost any-thing is possible. Conversely, some individuals, whether throughbad luck or error, will strike out only to fail. When this happens,they must pick themselves up-hopefully with the help of theirwilling community-and get back at it.

Yet the 2008 bailouts were the antithesis to this "Americanspirit," revealing that it is fast becoming little more than myth. As

. was reported immediately after the first decision to bail out Amer-ican International Group Inc. (AIG) with $85 billion (that figuregrew to roughly $170 billion), the Wall Street Journal's online edi-tion ran an article that stated righdy, "[T]he government decidedAIG truly was too big to fail." Yes, the government decided this,but it is far from the truth.

Are we to believe that this is capitalism? I hope we are notthat naive.

Rather, this was the epitome of big business and big govern-

ment working together to prolong their statuses as elites. Why isit that when a middle-class family falls down they are not bailedout? They feel pain at least as much as CEOs. It is not surprisingthat the Occupy Wall Street protests of Fall 2011 drew so muchsympathy: While the protesters' proposed solutions were oftenlacking in economic sense, their anger on behalf of the victims ofcorporatism was well-justified.

Deeming a business or bank too big to fail and hiding behindthe fallible theory of Keynesian economics is a complete distrac-tion from the true motivation for the government's bailout de-cisions. Perhaps the real driving force behind the bailouts wasthat twenty-seven members of Congress reported owning stockin AIG in 2007, just a year before the bailout. Senator John Kerryreportedly owned roughly $2 million in AIG stock during thatsame year. Take a wild guess as to whether he supported thebailouts.

It should likewise come as no surprise that Senators ChrisDodd and Max Baucus, chair committees who oversaw AIG andthe insurance industry at-large, were the first and third biggestrecipients of AIG contributions in 2006. This is just the tip ofthe iceberg; banks and businesses that received bailouts give plen-tiful donations to campaigns because they are investing in corruptadvantages.

The lesson to take away from this is not to increase regula-tions on private industries or to reform campaign finance laws.That would only exacerbate the problem because, as it can be seen

clearly, Washington should not be trusted with interfering in theprivate sector.

Rather, what we should derive from this discussion is thatWashington needs to be stripped of its power over the privatesector. The federal government should not be able to bail out acompany when it fails, no matter how big it is or how much it con-tributes to Congresspersons' election campaigns. In fact, the solereason why these businesses give so much money to campaigns isbecause they know how much they will get in return.

If Washington did not have the power to unfairly benefit cor-porations and bail them out, those businesses would not have adirty incentive to donate to their campaigns. The problem is notthe type or extent of regulations currently in place; the problemis that as long as these regulations exist, they will be available forpurchase to the highest corporate bidder.

We need less government involvement in the private sector todefeat corporatism. Then and only then will we begin to experi-ence and, if needed, critique the free market. Until that point,let's aim our criticism at the real target, the corporatism whichcontinues to lurk in the shadows, sucking life from the remainingproductive parts of our economy.

Beo/amine Levine student at Drake University who is pursuing amc!forin bothpolitics and history with a minor in military science.Heis the current President of the Y4L chapter at Drake.

11Young American Revolution

THE TEA PARTY'S BOLD PLANFOR BUDGET REFORM

What if we made a budget plan by actually asking Americans what they want?

Matt Kibbe

America needs bold action, that much is clear. Strong, ag-gressive policies are the only way to restore the American

economy. While some of the Republican primary candidateshave put forth a courageous plan here or taken an audaciousstance there, it's clear the American people demand a compre-hensive plan that pulls no punches and protects no sacred cows,even when that means taking a serious look at defense spending.

The sentiment is reflected clearly in the findings of the Nov.17, 2011, Tea Party Debt Commission report, a bold plan to getWashington's rampant spending under control. The Commis-sion consisted of 12 volunteer members from all over the coun-try, mirroring the structure of the Congressional Super Commit-tee. Unlike the Super Committee-the bipartisan group createdby Congress with a goal of slashing the budget by at least $1.2trillion-the Tea Party Debt Commission actually accomplishedits goal, slashing an amazing $9 trillion and balancing the budgetin 10 years.

The Tea Party budget proposal was created to provide agrassroots solution to the budget crisis-using the novel ap-proach of actually finding out what the people wanted. Resultswere gathered through an online crowd-sourcing survey thatasked voters to choose between specific cuts they would liketo see in the budget. Field hearings were also held across thecountry to gather direct input from the grassroots on budgetcuts, entitlement reform, and economic freedom. This plan putseverything on the table, including the traditional Republican sa-cred cow of defense.

NECESSITY DOESN'T JUSTIFY EXCE:SS

Establishment Republicans have become entangled with amassive defense contracting network muddled by lobbying andplenty of campaign cash. For too long they've received a passbecause national security, unlike so many of the pet programsof the left, is a clear responsibility of the federal government.Irresponsible spending has been justified .by claiming that cutsto the defense budget are unpatriotic or would weaken America'sstrong, global military presence. It's true that we must protectour freedoms and all of the functions of government, not hurtthem. But the debate was falsely framed as a choice betweencutting military spending or keeping America's national security

12March 2012

strong.However, you don't have to be a pacifist to see, as many in

the Tea Party do, that spending across the board has gone outof control and must be reined in. The Tea Party Debt Commis-sion report acknowledges the importance of balancing respon-sible spending with keeping America safe. It reflects Americans'recognition that there is an incredible amount of waste in thedefense budget that must be eliminated.

About $1 trillion of the Debt Commission's savings comefrom defense cuts but focusing on three approaches: 1) cutwasteful spending, such as duplicative purchases of Pentagonsupplies; 2) eliminate or move from the Pentagon's budget allprograms that have nothing to do with national defense; and3) prefer specific cuts over across-the-board reductions or se-questers.

The sequester instated by the Congressional Super Commit-tee's failure to reach a compromise requires across-the-boardcuts, including defense. This act of Congress is a "meat-ax" ap-proach to spending cuts that could severely weaken our defenseto a dangerously unacceptable level. The Tea Party Budget Com-mission looked deeper and found where the cuts in defense areneeded, saving the strength, size, and development of our mili-tary without compromising on fiscal responsibility.

THE SAGGING SOCIAL SAFETY NET

But the Tea Party's proposed budget doesn't focus exclusivelyon defense spending. Of course, comprehensive budget reformmust include significant entitlement reforms, and the Tea PartyDebt Commission showed that Americans expect our electedofficials to grab the third rail with both hands to begin breakingdown the Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and ObamaCarebehemoths.

Progressivism has ushered Americans into an entitlementmindset, making programs like Social Security incredibly touchysubjects, even among so-called conservatives. However, we canno longer afford for politicians to dance around the issue. In1936, the government made a promise to American workers:"Beginning November 24, 1936, the United States governmentwill set up a Social Security account for you ... The checks willcome to you as a right."

19%

In spite of that promise, the future looks grim for youngpeople who will be supporting the Baby Boomer generation.The Heritage Foundation estimated that by 2017 Social Securitywill payout more in benefits than payroll taxes bring in. In 1940,42 taxpayers supported eachretiree. Now, it's only 3.3taxpayers per retiree. Thatmeans Washington will haveto raise taxes for the workingclass to support retiring BabyBoomers.

In fact, 25 years fromnow Social Security will onlyhave enough funds to payfor 75 percent of promisedbenefits. Even more daunt-ing are the future costs ofthe program. Social Securityhas upwards of 60 trilliondollars in unfunded liabili-ties-numbers that Wash-ington doesn't share with the Tea Party rally in DC on 9/12/2009

American people. The TeaParty budget supports a pri-vate account approach that has previously been implementedby Chile and many counties in Texas. Chile adopted a privateaccount system in the early 1980s and the results were phenom-enal: people were given the freedom to shop around for a pro-gram that best fit their needs, chose their own retirement age,and received higher retirement payments than the public system.Also, the effect on the economy was enormous. GDP growthwas explosive and unemployment fell below 5 percent.

The Tea Party's budget proposal adopts a modified approachto Jeff Flake's SMART Act. This plan allows new workers bornafter 1981 to invest one-half of their payroll taxes in a SMARTaccount. These accounts build ori compound interest. The fundsgenerated to provide for retirement and health care are expectedto be much greater than the current public system. This planprovides people with more control over their own accounts, pro-vides an increase in benefits through the p.ower of compoundinterest, and does not touch the retirement age. However, .theoption of staying in the current system is still available.

Medicare, the second-largest government program, repre"senting 13 percent of the budget, is also on the block for reformunder the Tea Party budget proposal. The program is growing atan unsustainable rate of 7 percent ayear, presenting itself as oneof the biggest road blocks to a future balanced budget.

The program is too bureaucratic, top-down and government-centric. Patients do not have the freedom of choice or controlover their benefits. Rather than focusing efforts on patient ben-efits and preventing fraud, the bureaucracy focuses on control-ling medical.ccsts-s-and fails to do either.

Medicare has also been used as a piggy bank to create Obam-aCare-another unsustainable government-provided entitle-ment program.·President Obama's plan is to take money fromMedicare and reduce reimbursement rates to doctors, hospitals,

14March 2012

and other health service providers. The meat-ax policy reducesaccess to care, decreases efficiency, and increases growth in un-derlying costs. The Tea Party budget provides an answer thatstops Medicare's unsustainable growth without limiting patients'

access to care or stiflingmedical progress and inno-vation.

After 2013, Americanswill have the choice to stayin the current program orto opt into the successfulFederal Employees HealthBenefit Program-the sameprogram enjoyed by cur-rent and former membersof Congress. By relying onprivate, competitive insur-ance companies, waste andfraud problems will be elimi-nated-saving $450 billionin the annual budget alone.This approach also makesthe system more patient-centered, giving individuals

more options at lower costs.Medicaid, the third-largest federal program, which provides

health care to the poor, is leading the states to bankruptcy. Thesystem has transformed into a middle-class entitlement programthat provides low-quality care to poor families. In, fact, the sys-tem is so unstable that around 40 percent of physicians will nottake new Medicaid patients. The Tea Party's proposal relievesthe financial and medical burden by issuing block-grants to thestates. The allocation of scarce resources gives the States theincentive to determine who truly needs help.

NOT-SO-SUPER CONGRESS

The professional legislators on the Congressional SuperCommittee failed to come up with a relatively paltry $1..2 trillionin budget cuts. The across-the-board cuts in defense arid non-defense discretionary spending that are impending as a result of,their failure don't even begin to address the underlying issuesof our budget crisis, and don't put us on the right track towardreform.

In making it clear that there are no longer any sacred cowsand finding $9 trillion in budget cuts, the Tea Party has onc::eagain shown the politicians of the Washingr6ri establishmenthow do their jobs. More importantly, it provides Washin~onwith a clear and bold plan for getting our finances back in orderand putting us on the path to recovery.

Matt Kibbe is the President and CEO of FreedomWorks. He isa well-respectednational public poliry expert, bestselling author and .....political commentator and has been called "one of the masterminds"of Tea Parrypolitics.

Now OR NEVER:

SAVING AMERICA FROM

ECONOMIC COLLAPSE

America now dangles on the edgeof a fiscal and economic cliff. We

have changed our original vision from anindividualistic and decentralized societyto a collectivist and centralized politicalstructure rife with waste and corruption.Federal policies now have the govern-ment owning or controlling a large andunprecedented part of America's eco-nomic activity-a condition more akinto socialism than capitalism.

The more we learn and assess, themore disturbing it gets!

Consider this: the federal governmentis now the nation's largest property own-er (Washington holds the deed to nearlyone-third of America's total landmass).By taxing us, our government "owns"over one-third of the profits of all busi-nesses and more than one-third of theincomes of most working Americans.Washington controls and restricts the de-velopment of America's energy resources. Government controlsthe majority of education and health-care services in America. Itowns the primary retirement income plan for most Americans(Social Security). And government-through a burdensome regu-latory system and direct interventions into the financial markets-effectively controls a significant portion of the nation's economicdevelopment and business activity.

How did this happen? How did America change so quicklyfrom the "shining city upon a hill," the beacon of individual free-dom, and the world's model for free enterprise economic prosper-ity to a nation on the brink of economic collapse?

The siren song of socialism that has lured Europe and almostevery other nation in history now has America in its trance. Politi-cal salesmen for collectivism are irresistible; their pitch is alwaysmore attractive to uninformed voters. Economist Milton Fried-

man explains:The argument for collectivism,

for government doing something, issimple. Anybody can understand it."If there's something wrong, p~ss alaw. If somebody is in trouble, getMr. X to help them out." The ar-gument for voluntary cooperation,for a free market, is not nearly sosimple. It says, ''You know, if youallow people to cooperate volun-tarily and don't interfere with them,indirectly, through the operation ofthe market, they will improve mat-ters more than you can improve itdirectly by appointing somebody."That's a subtle argument, and it'shard for people to understand.Moreover, people think that whenyou argue that way you're arguingfor selfishness, for greed. That's ut-ter nonsense.

Unlike America's Founders, who understood well the dangersof centralized power, today's voters are not as familiar with theselessons of history. Being less suspicious of centralization thanearlier generations makes the average voter more susceptible tothe utopian promises of big government. Politicians understandthis and exploit citizens' fear and insecurity-typically born ofWashington's numerous contrived crises-to herd the masses intomore dependency on big-government programs.

If Americans are convinced they are unable to survive and suc-ceed on their own, they will demand that big government protectthem and make them more secure: It was Benjamin Franklin whotold us that any society that gives up liberty to gain security willdeserve neither and lose both. Losing individual autonomy anddrive kills the soul and diminishes the individual initiative requiredto build strong nations.

An excerpt from Jim DeMint's newest book

Senator Jim DeMint speaks at a rally in Erlanger, Ken-tucky for then-candidate Rand Paul.

16March 2012

Collectivism is anathema to freedom and prosperity. All ini-tiative, creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship, productivity, faith,love, and charity begin at the individual leveL The philosophiesand policies that have imperiled America are those that have di-minished individualism while centralizing federal power and forc-ing citizens into dependency on collectivist government programs.

What makes America exceptional is the individual spirit-whatmakes us less exceptional is when we damage this important phil-osophical heritage.

THE PHILOSOPHIES THAT CHANGED AMERICA

For nearly a hundred years prior to the Civil War, the UnitedStates resisted the European trend toward socialized economies,large central governments, and collectivist social programs. Butthe destruction and human tragedy of the Civil War led to federalactions that planted the seeds for more centralized federal power.

As most Americans know, the Civil War started in 1861. Thatwas also the year of the first American income tax. To start, Con-gress placed a flat 3 percent tax on all incomes over $800, butlater modified it to include a graduated tax. The Civil War alsoprecipitated the first national pension program to assist poor anddisabled veterans. Congress later repealed the income tax in 1872,but the seeds of federal entitlements and the ease of paying forthem with an income tax had set the stage for the unrestrictedexpansion of the federal government in the. future.

A mere century after America declared her independence froman oppressive government in far-off England, the seeds of de-pendence on big government at home were already being planted.

In 1894, as part of a tariff bill, Congress once again enacted a2 percent tax on annual income over $4,000. But the tax was im-mediately struck down by a 5- 4 decision of the Supreme Court.This new interpretation by the Court-that an income tax wasunconstitutional- created an obstacle for a growing European-style "enlightened" progressive movement in America. Progres-sives knew that centralized, so-called progressive policies wouldfail unless the federal government had the ability to tax personalincome and business profits. The Founders intended for Ameri-can government to be limited. To be more like the Europeans,progressives knew it must be virtually unlimited.

The progressive dream of limitless federal spending was soonaccomplished with the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution,which allowed a federal income tax. An unlikely chain of eventscaused this to happen with the unwitting assistance of conserva-tives in Congress. As writren in the Milestones Documents in theNational Archives:

The Democratic Party Platforms under the leader-ship of three-time Presidential candidate William Jen-nings Bryan, however, consistently included an incometax plank, and the progressive wing of the RepublicanParty also espoused the concept.

In 1909 progressives in Congress again atrached aprovision for an income tax to a tariff bill. Conserva-tives, hoping to kill the idea for good, proposed a con-stitutional amendment enacting such a tax; they believedan amendment would never receive ratification by three-

. fourths of the states. Much to their surprise, the amend--'..t<~ent was ratified by one state legislature after another,

and on February 25, 1913, with the certification by Sec-retary of State Philander C. Knox, the 16th amendmenttook effect. Yet in 1913, due to generous exemptionsand deductions, less than 1 percent of the populationpaid income taxes at the rate of only 1 percent of netincome.

This document settled the constitutional question ofhow to tax income and, by so doing, effected dramaticchanges in the American way of life.

Before the income tax, the federal government was limited totransactional taxes derived from tariffs, excise, and sales. Thesetaxes were generally visible to the public because everyone paidthem-and this visibility in turn made any tax increases suscep-tible to significant public resistance. Transparency meant the rev-enue raised to fund the federal government was limited-which inturn kept the role of the federal government equally limited. Thiswas how the Founders' system was supposed to work.

But with the advent of the income tax, federal politicians weregiven almost unlimited power to spend and grow government.It effectively gave the federal government an ownership sharein every citizen's labor and a percentage of the profits from theentire American economy. Such levels of government intrusionwould've been beyond the wildest big government dreams ofKing George III.

Proponents of the income tax promised that the tax wouldnever exceed 1 or 2 percent of income, but as is typically thecase with politicians' promises, this soon changed. It wasn't longbefore Congress began to raise taxes on businesses and upper-income workers. This kept the political backlash to a minimum,since most workers did not see their taxes increase. This practicealso gave birth to the often immoral and duplicitous use of classwarfare strategies employed ad nauseam by progressives who pitdifferent segments of society against each other for their own po-litical gain. Sadly, this rhetoric continues to be front and center inso many political debates today.

The income tax and World War I (1914-1918) were catalystsfor the growth of federal power, and they facilitated the initialsuccesses of progressive philosophy in America. Not-surprisingly,the implementation of the income tax and World War I coincided.with America's first progressive president. President WoodrowWilson (1913-1921) was the first American president to activelywork against our original, decentralized, republican form of gov-ernment. He started the modern practice of disregarding theConstitution for his own political ends.

Fox News legal analyst and television host Andrew Napoli-tano explains how Wilson's progressive legacy has contributed toour current economic crisis as it relates to the abuses of the Fed-eral Reserve: "Since World War I, since the advent of the FederalReserve, since the presidency of Woodrow Wilson, the federalgovernment has never been out of debt, and it has never wantedto be. Prior to the Wilson era, when the government borrowedmoney, it paid it back ... It was truly a pernicious time for free-dom. But free money is what Wilson left to his successors, and'they all were seduced by it."

Napolitano adds: "The Constitution states that the Congressshall coin money and determine the value of it. For the first 125years of the nation, that's what the Congress did. But Wilson per-suaded Congress a hundred years ago to give that power away to

17Young American Revolution

a private bank-the Federal Reserve; thereby letting the bankerswho ran it, not Congress and not the free market, determine thevalue of money. And these bankers, who became fabulously richby doing this, appealed to the weakness in every president fromPresident Wilson to President Obama-free money."

Once again, for progressives, unlimited government and hav-ing the unlimited power to tax and spend is a necessity. Similarto many European secularists, Wilson was heavily influenced byCharles Darwin and believed that governments, like humans, mustconstantly evolve. He opposed the "Newtonian" view- similarto the law of gravity theorized by Sir Isaac Newton-that gov-ernment should have an unchanging constitutional foundation.President Wilson argued that government should be "accountableto Darwin, not to Newton. It is modified by its environment, ne-cessitated by its tasks, shaped to its functions by the sheer pressureof life .... Living political constitutions must be Darwinian instructure and in practice." In other words, the Constitution shouldmean simply whatever Wilson and his fellow progressives think itshould mean-a concept President Obama and his party wouldreadily recognize today.

This progressive and supposedly evolutionary thinking beganto untie the moorings of constitutional limited government inAmerica during Wilson's presidency, and it fed a growing secular-ist movement that affected every area of American life. Sociolo-gist and author Marvin Olasky writes:

Evolutionary thinking influenced not only SocialDarwinists but socialists like H. G. Wells who thoughtit was time to advance beyond competitive enterprise.(Karl Marx in Das Kapital called Darwin's theory "ep-och making" and told Friedrich Engels that On the Ori-gin of Species "contains the basis in natural history forour view.") Many books and articles have linked Dar-win's thought to Lenin, Stalin, Mao Tse-Tung, and Hit-ler: Darwin is obviously not responsible for the atroci-ties committed in his name, but evolutionary theory plushis musings about superior and inferior races provided alogical justification for anti- Semites and racists.

Though secular-socialist philosophies began to take holdamong political and academic elites in the early 1900s, this newthinking did not begin to significandy shape political policies untilWorld War II and the decade-long Great Depression (1929-1940)frightened Americans into the arms of the federal government.The Great Depression shook America's confidence in individual-ism and free market capitalism.

So of course politicians were quick to come to the rescue. De-spite populist fears about capitalism that were often fed by pro-gressive rhetoric, the Great Depression was more likely causedby protectionist trade policies and the mismanagement of ourcurrency by the newly formed Federal Reserve- printing "freemoney," for example, as Napolitano explained- not by a failureof the free market. But politicians are loath to allow any crisis. to pass without using it as an excuse to grow government. TheWashington political class and the media convinced the Americanpeople that the Depression was caused by greedy corporationsand a lack of federal controL

This should sound familiar. Today we hear that the housingbubb1e and current economic crisis were caused by too little gov-ernment regulation- completely ignoring the Federal Reserve'scomplicity in artificially lowering the interest rate, thus allow-

18March 2012

ing people who could not afford homes to buy them. "Greedy"capitalists took advantage of a situation created in large part bythe government-which we are now supposed to believe can besolved by even more government intervention. Thomas Woods,author of Meltdown: A Free Market Look at W~ the Stock Market Col-lapsed, the Economy Tanked and Government Bailouts Make Things Worse,writes: ''As several economists have noted, blaming the crisis ongreed is like blaming plane crashes on gravity." Woods also notesthat through the Federal Reserve there "were more dollars beingcreated between 2000 and 2007 than in the rest of the republic'Shistory."

President Franklin D. Roosevelt used the "crises" of the GreatDepression and World War II to move America toward Europeancollectivist social policies. The American worldview changed dra-matically during this unprecedented era of government expan-sion. FDR's successor, Harry Truman, inherited a nation with anoutlook very different from our Founders. This was the pivotalpoint in American history, when we took a sharp left turn from afree republic and headed down the road toward a social democ-racy.

Conservative author Andrew J. Bacevich explains the politicalshift that occurred under Wilson and Roosevelt and how Ameri-can government was significandy transformed post-Truman:"FDR's predecessors had presided over a republic. Central tothe functioning of that republic was a set of checks and balancesdesigned to limit the concentration of political power. Truman'ssuccessors presided over a system defined by the concentrationof power in Washington and, within Washington, in the executivebranch."

Bacevich has noted that these vast expansions of centralizedgovernment power coincided with some of the most significantwars in American history (the Civil War, World Wars I and II). AsFDR would state bluntly, ''War costs money." The dominant trendamong conservatives in the early twentieth century was to opposemassive foreign interventions due in large part to a recognitionof the centralizing effect of wartime politics and economics. Thiswas the same reason the Founders so vigorously opposed Amer-ica becoming involved in "entangling alliances." In retrospect, wenow know defeating fascism and communism was the right thingto do, but the correlation between war and big government is cer-tainly as true as the Founders once warned.

True to his progressive form, President Wilson would say thatAmerica went to war to "make the world safe for democracy,"while, perhaps ironically, doing great damage to our republic athome. The most high-profile conservative politician of his time,Senator Robert Taft-known as "Mr. Republican"-had a muchdifferent, and much more sober, take on our two world wars. Taft,known as the most vigorous opponent in Washington of Wilsonand FDR's progressive policies, rebuked Wilson's progressive for-eign policy vision in 1946, saying we went to war "to maintain thefreedom of our own people ... Certainly we did not go to war toreform the world."

This is an excerpt from NOW OR NEVER: Saving Americafrom Economic Collapse by Senator Jim Delvlint, Copyright © 2012by Jim DeMint. Reprinted by permission of Center Street. Allrights reserved.

Jim DeMint delivers the blunttruth about these crucial timesand is joined by some of hiscolleagues in Congress-SenatorsTom Coburn. Mike lee. Rand Paul,Marco Rubio. and Pat Toomey.Representative Steve King, andothers-to give Americans ahelping hand.

THE 'SILENT' PRESIDENT WHO TALKED HIS

WAY TOWARD small GOVERNMENTCalvin Coolidge's Lessons for the Modern GOP

Bonnie Kristian

The presidency of Calvin Coolidge is of-ten ranked as one of worst in American

history, and stands in the modern mind as themost recent example of a do-nothing presi-dent.

Exemplifying this posture, at the close of2011 President Obama signed into law theNational Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).One section of this law allows, contra theFourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments, indefi-nite detention of American citizens withoutcharge or trial. Worse yet, the requirements fordetention are so vague that a humanitarian re-lief worker who accidentally gave aid to some-one with terrorist connections could theoreti-cally be detained. Yet both houses of Congressoverwhelmingly voted in favor of the NDAAand Obama signed the bill on New Year's Eve,a Saturday, ensuring that the decision would re-ceive minimal attention.

The indefinite detention measure of theNDAA is not law because the Constitution al-lows this type of legislation. It is law becausethe executive and legislative branches realized

they could get away with it. And it is not at all the only bill of itskind. One need look no further than the legislative agenda of thetime period during which the indefinite detention provision waspassed to find the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which gives thegovernment dangerous powers of internet censorship. Google co-founder Sergey Brin has said that passage of SOPA would "put uson a par with the most oppressive nations in the world." A wideracknowledgement of the "great limitations" of the Constitution ismuch-needed indeed.

Overwhelmingly rated poorly on counts ofinactivity, lack of flexibility, and low prestige,Coolidge is seen as a president who tended to"be acted upon" rather than act, as MichaelNelson put it in The Presidency and the PoliticalSystem.

However, despite being remembered most-ly as "Silent Cal," and depicted as taciturn,sour, or even rude, the quiet man who wouldultimately become Ronald Reagan's presiden-tial inspiration got results while in office and Coolidge on October 22, 1924, holding a cer-was extremely popular in his day, especially at emonial hat of the fictitious Smoki Indians.the grassroots level. Though Coolidge's liber-tarian conservatism has been rebranded as las-situde, his stricdy constitutional model of governing is one fromwhich Washington-hardly awash in popularity, let alone effective-ness-would now do well to emulate.

LIMIT, NOT LICENSE

"[T]he President exercises his authority in accordance with theConstitution and law," Coolidge wrote in his autobiography. Whilemost inhabitants of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue take the Constitu-clbn's grant of executive power "as an authorization to take anyaction which the Constitution, or perhaps the law, does not spe-cifically prohibit," Coolidge found that" [fjor all ordinary occasionsthe specific powers assigned to the President will be sufficient toprovide for the welfare of the country. That is all he needs."

In practice this philosophy meant that Coolidge would not at-tempt to do whatever the Constitution did not explicidy forbid, butinstead contented himself with what it explicidy allowed. Presidentduring an eminently ordinary time, one marked by peace, prospercity, and a lack of significant turmoil, Coolidge was left unchallengedby most of the more serious temptations to constitutional devi-ance. Yet it seems likely that even a more turbulent time in officewould have left him with a similarly constrained view of his consti-tutionally granted-powers: Of himself Coolidge said, "I supposeI am the most powerful man in the world, but great power doesn'tmean much except great limitations." His attitude toward presiden-tialleadership was one of constraint, not enthusiasm.

It is an attitude which is rarely imitated today. The question is nolonger "What am I allowed to do?" but ''What can I get away with?"

A FRIENDLY ADMINISTRATOR

Just as Coolidge looked to the Constitution for limits on hisauthority, so he looked to its authors and their contemporaries for apresidential paradigm. Coolidge subscribed to the old Whig under-standing of the presidency, which denoted the president a simpleadministrator and placed primary emphasis on Congress as the ma-jor representative organ of the federal government.

The strict view of the presidency which Coolidge maintainedderived at least in part from his acceptance of the natural law theo-ry so popular among the Founders. A lawyer by training, Coolidgecontended that in the Constitution the citizens of the United Stateshad found the "aptest" representation of natural law that could behoped for, and as such obedience to the document was "the expres-sion of a moral requirement of living in accordance with the truth."

Despite this moralistic understan;Jing of the law, Coolidge wasnot interested in attempts to dictate morality through legislation.Although he would ultimately fulfill his role as executive in admin-

20March 2012

istering Prohibition, for instance, Coolidge condemned laws of thatsort, explaining that government endeavors "to regulate, control,and prescribe all manner of conduct and social relations" wereboth very common in the history of government and completelyinimical to an ostensibly free nation such as the United States.

It is in this sentiment that Coolidge finds himself abandonedby his admirer Reagan, as well as much of the modern RepublicanParty. While Coolidge followed the more consistent path of want-ing to keep the federal government out of such personal as well asfinancial choices, Reagan notably ramped up the War on Drugs inthe 1980s, significantly increasing both mandatory sentencing andfederal funding for the project to the tune of millions. He declared,''We're taking down the surrender flag that has flown over so manydrug efforts; we're running up a battle flag."

The battle flag did indeed go up-and with it incarceration ratesof nonviolent offenders who are disproportionately minorities-not to mention federal police authority and spending. The U.S. gov-ernment now spends more than $15 billion per year combattingthe drug trade, but drug use rates remain essentially unaffected byhistorical and international comparisons. This modern prohibitionis most certainly a government endeavor "to regulate, control, andprescribe all manner of conduct and social relations," and it shouldnot surprise supporters of limited government that it has been gall-ingly unsuccessful.

The systematic racism of the war on drugs is itself striking. Mi-chelle Alexander, a civil rights litigator and professor at Ohio StateUniversity, has extensively documented an effect of the drug warwhich she calls the "new Jim Crow": Despite the fact that studiesreveal a higher percentage of white Americans using and dealingdrugs, black Americans are arrested and incarcerated at far higherrates, controlling for the severity of each group's drug activities.

Reagan was right that a battle flag needed to fly,but wrong in hisselection of which flag to hoist. Rather than the flag of increasedgovernment intrusion in private lives, of arrests and jail time fornonviolent consumption and business transactions, the flag whichthe supporter of liberty must raise is one of consistent oppositionto government interference in the private sphere. Coolidge's decla-ration on state programs created to control social conduct furthernotes: "There is a danger of disappointment and disaster unlessthere be a wider comprehension of the limitations of the law ....There is no justification for public interference with purely privateconcerns."

THE RESULTS OF PRINCIPLE

Constrained by his focus on the limitations of)x.th the law andthe presidency, Coolidge took a remarkably coaservative approachto economic matters, even for the 1920s.

The federal income tax amendment had been ratified just adecade earlier, but already the highest income tax bracket allowedtaxation of up to 60% at the time that Coolidge's Treasury Secre-tary Andrew Mellon took office. Coolidge cooperated with Mel-lon closely to maintain a balanced budget while severely cuttingthe income tax and reducing the national debt, a project which wasperhaps his most significant pursuit of a policy goal as president.

Constantly attempting to limit government expenditures,Coolidge once comically told a press conference that the govern-ment had many departments, "and a little saved in each one, eachdivision, in the aggregate amounts to a very large sum. I don't know

whether I have ever indicated to the conference that the cost oflead pencils to the Government per year is $125,000." The tax cutsthe Mellon plan gradually got through Congress eventually low-ered the progressive income tax to the point that 98 percent of thepopulation paid no income tax at all in 1928.

Meanwhile, on the coalitional front, Coolidge provided a newdirection for the Republican Party, transforming it for the first timefrom a party premised upon authoritarianism and state-buildingto an organization that favored free-market principles and smallgovernment. He was responsible for introducing a new emphasison individualism; whereas the older wing of the GOP associatedindividualism with greedy and loose behavior, Coolidge consideredit a key aspect of freedom, locating all rights in the individual ratherthan the collective.

This libertarian strain in Coolidge's ideology was new to theRepublican Party, which previously had been the party of Lin-coln, standing for nationalization and serving the interests of bigbusiness in a sort of neo-mercantilism or plutocracy. As Colleen J.Shogan put it in "Coolidge and Reagan: The Rhetorical Influenceof Silent Cal on the Great Communicator," Coolidge paved theway for "nothing less than a fundamental rethinking of Americanconservatism."

Coolidge's progress in economic policy is today undoubtedlydemolished as the national debt stands at $15 trillion. But what ofhis guidance of the GOP?

Here, perhaps, all is not similarly lost-but even the most opti-mistic assessment puts the Republican Party at a crossroads. Aftereight years under a Republican president whose decision to aban-don "free market principles to save the free market system" resultedin economic plans which can only be described as serving the inter-ests of big business in a sort of plutocracy (sound familiar?), we'veplunged into four years of a Democrat with exactly the same cronycapitalist ideas. Not only has much of the GOP returned to pre-Coolidge statism, but in doing so it has found itself mirroring theDemocratic Party, albeit with a few different preferences for exactlyhow huge sums of borrowed money should be spent.

But the younger generation-the voters who will, in two de-cades or so, compose the majority of the electorate--expresses aclear preference for a return to Coolidge's remodeling. A Septem-ber 2011 Reason/Rupe poll found that Americans 18-29 are morelikely than any other age group to support federal spending caps,a balanced budget amendment, and spending cuts to resolve thenational debt. They are also the most likely by far to argue that thegovernment should not promote any particular set of values, and todescribe themselves as "fiscally conservative and socially liberal"- .a descriptor which might well be applied to the governing philoso-phy of Coolidge himself.

The youth are overwhelmingly going the way of liberty. Andif the Republican Party wishes to reestablish itself as a vehicle oflimited government-if it wishes to remain viable as a new genera-tion takes the reins-if it wishes to commit itself to more than ashallow, hypocritical chant of "Nope" in the general direction ofObama et al.-it must take Calvin Coolidge's lead once more.

Bonnie Kristian is the Director of Communications atYoung Americans for Liberty. Her personal writings may befound at bonniekristian.com.

21Young Americ~evofution

Fighting for the unborn the legal and practical way: without DC

What does it look like to beboth principled in support

for limited government and effec-tively pro-life? These questionscontinually plague those of uswith a bent toward social conser-vatism but limited by strict Con-stitutionalism.

Personally, I am first and fore-most a Christian and my beliefsas a Christian absolutely influencemy political beliefs-but it's cru-cial not to confuse the two. Noissue but abortion seems to have

, ..

Marian Ward

the murky waters to exist betweenthese two sets of driving core val-ues in American society. Despite years of marches on WashingtonDCRoe v. Wade remains

the lawof the land.Meanwhile, despite their gran-diose speeches and thumpingof the pro-life and! or pro-women plank on the campaign trail,neither major party has shown real progress toward reaching ahumane solution on the question of abortion-not to mentionreining in fiscal policy or preserving the principles of liberty en-shrined in our Constitution.

The issue of abortion is rife with emotion on both sides, andrightfully so. It strikes at the core of what it means to be human.It is however imperative not to set these emotions aside, but totem~er them 'with a practical focus on the real goal: to protectthe lives of the unborn, surely the most vulnerable individualsamong us.

So, what can be done to realistically protect the lives of theunborn? Many pro-lifers-most, in fact-have pushed since Roev. Wade was handed down for federal legislation to overturn thisdisastrous SCOTUS decision. National-level nonprofits aboundwith ending abortion, at a federal level as the foundational plankin their platform. The pattern of many of these groups is mim-icked by many of well-meaning pro-life politicians as well. Thetransition from "real" America to Washington, D.c. has created ahaze around this issue, obscuring the serious problems with these 'federal solutions.

In fact, almost 40 years and 40 Marches for Life later, it's timefor us to honestly assess where we are in pursuing this ideal andwhat we haven't accomplished. The frank answer is, a federal an-swer has been unreachable at best and would be downright un-constitutional at worst. While some small advances have beenmade, Roe v. Wade is more firmly entrenched than ever. If we hopeto stop abortion in our lifetimes, it is time for new tactics.

MURDER MOST IGNORED

"Abortion is murder," declaresthe bumper sticker, but most pro-lifers fail to realize the legal and po-litical ramifications that this (true)statement has for working againstabortion at the federal level.

Treason is the only crime evenmentioned in the U.S. Constitution.If the l O" Amendment (the currentfavorite of Tea Partiers in their op-position to Obamacare) is to be un-derstood at face value, "this meansthat there is no constitutional jus-tification for Congress-or the Su-preme Court-to rule on any othercriminal activity without a constitu-tional amendment to make a spe-cific allowance. Thus, if abortion is

murder, and murder is a crime, and the federal government is con-stitutionally limited to only dealing with one crime-treason-thenthe federal government has no authority to legislate on abortion.End of story.

So how do we prosecute crimes? Constitutionally, this is a jobstrictly limited to the states. There has never been an outcry for afederal legislation answer for any other crime, and I would suggestthat practicallY and legallY speaking such an outcry is equally inap-propriate for the pro-life movement. A constitutional amendmentbanning abortion is technically possible, of course, but I suspectwe can all agree that pro-lifers simply do not have the nauonallevels of support necessary to pass one in the foreseeable future.

So, what do we as constitutionalists and lovers of both libertyand life do to protect our most vulnerable?

There are two quite powerful weapons available in our arsenalonce we realize that a federal approach is both impractical and,barring an amendment, unconstitutional.

One successful weapon has been and continues to be state-level legislation. Ch~nges in various state laws and amendmentsto state constitutions haveprovided the larg~st strides made toprotect life since Roe v. Wade, thanks in large part to the smallerscale on which these changes must be made. It goes without say-ing that it is easier to persuade, say, 20 million people to supportlife than 300 million.

According to the website for Americans United for Life(AUL), "While much of the attention of pro-life Americans is onCongress and the [federal] courts, laws are enacted and enforcedat the state level. [... ] In 1992 the Supreme Court clearly opened

22Young American Revolution

the door for states to put legal limits on abortionin the decision Planned Parenthood v. Casey" AUL'sefforts have taken this approach since 1971. Theirwork has paid dividends by providing court-testedmodel legislation for 40 different potential bills.

Every year, AUL produces a "Life List" whichranks states according to their measures for theprotection of the unborn. AUL's most recent"winner," Oklahoma, topped the list for success-ful passage of the Pregnant Womans Protection Act,which astonishingly seems to be named for what itactually does. This law permits women to use force Marian Wardto protect their unborn children from criminal as-saults. In doing.so, it creates important legal precedent for treatingthe unborn as humans.

Likewise, se~ral states have passed bills called ultrasound laws(requiring women to have an ultrasound before they will be pro-vided abortion by a physician) that have withstood court scrutiny.According to MSNBC, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals upheldthe state of Texas' version of this law as recently as January 10,2012. Kentucky, North Carolina, Florida, and several other stateshave passed similar measures in recent years. These laws may notmake abortion illegal, but they mark much more significant, prac-tical progress than decades of picketing again Roe v. Wade haveever seen.

Some creative Ohioans are showing promise in their lobbyingfor what they've coined as "The Heart Beat Bill" in an effort toestablish viability of an unborn baby at the point of a detectableheartbeat, which the American Pregnancy association places at5 Yz to 6 weeks of development. Again, this is not a bill whichwill end all abortion everywhere. But it is an important step forOhio--and it could be an important step for your state too.

YOUR PERSONAL FIGHT FOR LIFE

The second approach for the pro-life constitutionalist strikesat the heart of the abortion matter: At its very core, abortion is asocial issue and therefore will never be legislated out of existence.Even if abortion were illegal tomorrow, some women would stillseek the dangerous procedure, convinced that they have no otheroptions. Since the matter of life is actually social in nature, pro-tecting the unborn must ultimately take place at a social-not po-

litical-Ievel.This is the part where I encourage pro-lifers

(myself included) to put their money where theirmouths are. Literally.

Put down your protest sign with bloody pic-tures of aborted babies on them and donate ac-tual funds to a crisis pregnancy center in your areaor a respected national network of centers. Helpthese centers provide the ultrasound machines thathave helped to change the hearts and minds of somany women. Maybe start small and donate a packof newborn diapers. The warm fuzzies alone areworth a few dollars.

One shining example of a great, compassionate organizationis Care Net (www.care-net.org). Donations to Care Net and manyother centers are tax deductible as well, and it is always more funto provide those funds to a charitable organization that, unlike theIRS, underwrites honorable activities. You can also help by sup-porting organizations providing private adoption and foster care,services such as Catholic Charities USA.

Then, consider going a step further. If you know someoneconsidering abortion--especially a young mother, scared and un-prepared for her new situation-reach out to her personally andoffer the help she needs to get through the pregnancy, care for oroffer the baby up for adoption, and move on with her life. If youare committed to protecting life, ask yourself which is more im-portant to you: Whether you are inconvenienced by having to givea mother-to-be a few rides to the doctor or letting her stay in yourspare room, or whether her baby is given a chance to be born.

Don't have any extra funds? Volunteer for a local organization.Donate gendy used baby clothes from your own children. Host ababy shower. Those of us who describe ourselves as libertarianor conservative often extol the virtues of private charity, but howmany of us test the theory? It can't hurt to try, right?

We may even save a few actual babies.

Marian Ward, personallY an adoptee, considers herse!! a staunchpro~/ifer. She has been involved in both libertarian and social conser-vative politics and is a former Congressional Liaison for ConcernedWomenfor America, one of the countrys largestwomens organizations.

ADVERTISEIN~-....Support the cause, advertise at affordabrates, and reach over 10,000 readers.

23Young American Revolution

THE EVOLUTION OF LIBERALISMNow, this is the story all about how a word got flipped, turned upside down

Devon Downes

The modern conception of liberalism is most often centered onone idea: The use-and typically expansion-of the state for

the benefit of society as a whole. With its attendant focus on so-cial welfare programs, " humanitarian" wars, and a mixed economy,this modern liberal movement is often the epitome of C.S. Lewis'"tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims," unendingbecause it finds hearty approval in the tyrants' heart.

American conservatives, libertarians, and other anti-statistsrightly denounce modern liberals for their expansion of the state.Between the New Deal, the Fair Deal, the New Frontier, the GreatSociety, and now the era of "Hope and Change," modern liberalismhas done little to recommend itself as a philosophy productive ofliberty or equality, whatever its claims to those principles may be.Indeed, on most counts I whole-heartedly agree with the critics ofliberalism. Where I disagree, however, is the notion that these poli-cies are liberal. The garden variety American statist may have laidclaim to the liberal title, but he does not possess its philosophicalpedigree.

ORIGINS OF A GREAT TRADITION

"There was a time," writes author and activist L.K. Samuels,"when liberalism was the undisputed philosophical underpinning -of Western Civilization."

Consider the first liberal: John Locke's ideals freed the worldfrom kings and tyrants and their arrogant self-righteousness thatassumed the citizenry was put on earth just for them to command.The forces of liberalism changed the authoritarian paradigm, lead-ing people to believe that consensus was more important than ac-cidents of births.

When Locke established liberalism as a quite literally revolution-

ary philosophy in the late 17m Century, his meaning would neverhave been conflated with one thing: Support for a powerful, centralgovernment charged with the benevolent management of society.

Indeed, it was exactly the opposite. Classical liberalism in itssimplest sense meant advocacy of limited government permit-ted only to fulfill its role of protecting life, liberty, and property.Locke's ideas in this vein were further developed by thinkers suchas Adam Smith in the 18m Century and Frederic Bastiat several de-cades later. "When these men's ideas jumped the pond to fuel theAmerican revolution, they were perhaps most strongly supportedby Thomas Jefferson, who so despised centralized government thathe expressed in an 1821 letter that the new American governmentwas already too illiberal:

When all government, domestic and foreign, in littleas in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as thecenter of all power, it will render powerless the checksprovided of one government on another and will be-come as venal and oppressive as the government fromwhich we separated.

FROM EPIPHANY TO EPITHET

So how could "liberalism," a word representative of so anti-stat-ist a philosophy, come to represent such a very different prescrip-tion for government? How did the term lose its history as a greatliberator in the history of ideas and, among many on the Americanright, become little better than a slur? Even more significantly, whydid this etymological reversal occur?

The answer lies in the development of another new politicalphilosophy: Progressivism. As Mises Institute scholar Ralph Raicoputs it, progressivism is "a vague term, but one that connote[s]

gft ~t!(~-TwoTreatisesofGovernmenr, 1689AU n~<lI1k.i.tl(,L.being all qUll and ind"I"Cnden(, no one {\1l~\t co lllann "lIt~d\l'r

in his life. health. hbcrry Of possessions."

Andrew jackson, President 18.2"As llOn~ as OOf ~w>mm<¢la( is a'i.b~\~l~CI"e•.t fulltheir wnh as !t\ng as it SOCI~I't'$«~us the cip,I~fl;e«)Rsckr\C'e and. of £1,.: P1'<.:SS, iI:\'\I iU be worth lt~

1//"' -k1. WT I f Nati',,'.'11/ ~JI')} me wea rh 0 anon, 1776

j

: '~h>' t'lY!ihq., The Declaration of Independence, 1776

William Jennings Bryan, presidential candidate1896, 1900, 1908

Abraham Lincoln, President 1861-1865

1/ {~. ::;(J/;L~Treasury Secretary 1789-1795"Consrinuions ,hmlld (~)lI~il')llly (If g'l~nall~mvisi("l.~; the reason is rlUt they mustllc<,:c,,~t:ilybe permanent. and In.\{ the" canaor CJIQ.ti.att" i'l!" the f'O'Sliii:-k dlUllgt' ofthing'

Woodrow V"The wortd most

Theodore Roosevelt, Pre~"If we ere rMI!y to be a gtE'at hatio'n, v

a new readiness to use the power of government for all sorts ofgrand things."

Originating in the late 19th and early ;W,h Centuries, progressiv-ism was soon found in both the Democratic and Republican par-ties. Championed by the likes of Teddy Roosevelt and William jen-nings Bryan, it advocated an amalgam of political positions similarin many respects to the platform of the modern liberal.

But American progressivism's rejection of the classical liber-al tradition of limited government would really get its start withDemocratic President Woodrow Wilson, who welcomed the notionthat society could be successfully planned by the political elite withopen arms. Wilson won the 1912 presidential election thanks tothe Republican vote splitting between former President TheodoreRoosevelt (then seeking a third term as the candidate for his BullMoose Party) and incumbent President William Howard Taft. Asthe heir to the Hamiltonian cause of a big-centralized government,Wilson shredded the Constitution at every turn.

He set a new precedent of economic interventionism whichwould later prove so useful to FDR arid intervened in World War rwithout necessity and against the will of the majority of Americans.(This Hitter act was especially ironic given that his successful 1916reelection campaign slogan was "He kept us out of war.") On thehome front, any individual who dared to publicly criticize Wilson'spolicies.was harassed by the government, andin some cases impris-oned-for the good of society, of course. Wilson's newly-revealedprogressive internationalism was resoundingly rejected by the elec-torate unready to abandon their liberal heritage, and Republicanstook Congress in 1918 and the White House in 1920 running on ananti-Wilson platform.

But progressivism was nonetheless here to stay. By the 1930sand '40s, as FDR entered the presidency, progressivism had ful-ly infiltrated the ranks of the Democratic Party. The New Deal'smonumental expansion of government scope and scale cementedthe fact that Progressivism was alive and well. It was around thistime that the adherents of progressivism took for themselves a newname which has stuck to their ideas to this day: Liberal. Progres-sives controlled the terms of the debate, and went on to control theagenda that followed.

As progressive philosopher John Dewey wrote in his Liberalismand Social Action in 1935, "measures went contrary to the idea ofliberty" as defined by Locke and Jefferson "have virtually come todefine the meaning of liberal faith. American liberalism as illustrat-

ed in the political progressivism of the early present century has solittle in common with British liberalism of the first part of the lastcentury that it stands in opposition to it." This change effectivelycamouflaged what were in many ways very new ideas (progressiv-ism) in a very old American tradition (liberalism)-and it was acamouflage which would make its wearer stronger.

Yet as Dewey himself admitted, "a small band of adherentsto earlier liberalism" still remained. Among them were libertarianicons Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, and Milton Friedman. Refus-ing to accept philosophy on their progressive opponents' terms,these economists maintained that their free market views were,and always would be, liberal. Mises.explained in the introduetioa to1944's Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War.

[WJhile the humanitarians indulged in depicting theblessings of this liberal utopia, they did not realize thatnew ideologies were on the way to supplant liberalismand to shape a new order arousing antagonisms for whichno peaceful solution could be found. They did not see itbecause they viewed these new mentalities and policiesas the continuation and fulfillment of the essential tenetsof liberalism.

Antiliberalism captured the popular mind disguised as true andgenuine liberalism. Today those styling themselves liberals are sup-porting programs entirely opposed to the tenets and doctrines ofthe old liberalism. They disparage private ownership of the meansof production and the market economy; and are enthusiastic friendsof totalitarian methods of economic management. They are striv-ing for government omnipotence, and hail every measure givingmore power to officialdom and government agencies.

Were Mises alive today, he would find his battle for the meaningof "liberalism" lost in most lexicons. But though operating undera different name, his fight Lockean liberalism remains alive in liber-tarians and their philosophical neighbors. In 1975, Ronald Reagansaid, "I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertari-anism." At their best, these and other anti-statist philosophies sharea heart of classical liberalism-a flame of liberty which no amountof renaming can put out.

EA. Hayek. TheRoad to Serfdom~ 1944

!MUtan Friedman, CapitO/ism and Freedom~1962I

1,6lericBastiat The Law, l8St) . {

Ludwig yon Mises, l..JlbetalislP, 1927I

c ood 'Ofth•..•piNlpk •.and ll"> l'~m3tr¢dhysand Qfpl'Opt'tty, m)¢t~ t)f

"

Ronald Reagon, Preside,,1 i980--1988'1 believe the vary h~rt ond soul ~f cOl'\$el'\lQ~mit1lPeritlrlllnism,"

. I

FrankUnDelano Roosevelt, Pr sident 1933-1~5

f1 George W. Bush, President 2001·2()09t "I hQd to abandon ~ tru::nitflt pntl¢iptes 11'IllIr<ier to rove theI tree mo~t system:1

lyndooJohnsor'l, President 1963..•1969

lson, President. 1913-1921madte'a~ fur tl~ocfaf1y.·

dent 1901-1909mtlstntlt mer.efy talk; w~Must ac;t big."

Sorack Obamo, President 2009 presentnChat'l~ wm not come if we wGit for some olher persallor SOmVJ!other time. We ar~ 1he &MS we'w bee" waitingfor, Wt ore, th~dll::mse thai ~ seek"

WHAT DEVELOPS?Top-down approaches don't help

Caitlyn Bates

Contrary to what Lil' Wayne and Keynes might claim, "makingit rain" is not legitimate public policy. That's right: The sphere

of international politics is nota nightclub and the US is nota famousrapper-if it were, CSPAN would be interesting.

But, in the true spirit of pop culture, the government refusesto be fazed by reality, facts, or basic math in its greater pursuit of agangster paradise, so throwing around some money to gain a littlepower-after dropping a few bombs-is just how it rolls. "Get 'erDone" military interventionism is the favored strategy, but whenthe government wants to seem compassionate, the highly sophisti-

Y·;;cat<:d"Just Throw Money At It" aid policy is a girl-next-door kind~t~9,fu;terventionism that the whore' family will love. Unfortunately,~:it"6rdgID.aid doesn't drive development for the same reason your kit-ten can't balance a checkbook: The warm and fuzzy factor has noeffect on efficacy.

The media's portrait of starving, poverty-stricken peoples-poverty porn, if you will-has burdened the continent of Africawith what has long been the West's response to those not made inits image: low expectations and financial "compassion." But whileAmericans gorge themselves in front of their televisions, wavingaway guilt by sponsoring a child or giving to ONE, some develop-ing economies-completely inconsistent with the civilized world'smental construct of the developing world-are, in fact, developing.

Former President Clinton proclaimed, "It's the economy, stu-pid!" and since then-at the risk of looking stupid-Americansreiterate that sentiment, despite widespread ignorance of the dis-eases underlying the symptom of underdevelopment and, perhapseven more problematic, the appropriate treatment. The nuancesof individual countries and economic policy itself seem to eludewell-intentioned donors, those who oversee aid disbursement, andeconomists who construct complicated and ill-fitting StructuralAdjustment Programs (SAP) for the world's needy nations.

Interventionist foreign policy of state and non-state actors fromthe West often fail to realize that African nations are not simplydifferent from the developed world-a difference which receives,with little benefit, the bulk of attention-but Africa itself is com-posed of countries that are politically, economically, and culturallydistinct. And it is these nuances which determine the direction ofprogress and, similarly, the degree of development.

Most economists are guilty of relying too much on prettygraphs, color-coded spreadsheets, and regressions generated fromfinancial data. Partially out of laziness, but also a tragic result ofpoor socialization, economists frequently have a poor grasp ofcommon sense-see Krugman, Paul. They plug-and-chug theseindicators in a vacuum, absent any consideration of actual humanbeings-of whom, after all, their awareness is likelyminimal. But tothose who have experienced the world outside of the subterranean,windowless offices of most economists, it should be obvious that

there are various interdependent economic and ~tructural elementsthat can affect development. Humanity does not exist in a vacuum.

Studies on development, especially in Africa, offer more rainthan sunshine-to be fair, abject poverty is pretty depressing-butwhen it comes right down to it, endlessly modeling failure does not,nor will it ever, save lives.Analyzing and comparing the coherent over-all,rystems-market structures within political landscapes-e-of suc-cessful and unsuccessful countries contributes more to a functionalunderstanding of development, reducing the risk 'of inflating theeffects of specific variables and distorting or i~f.lring importantqualitative factors.

So let's compare two representative case studies, both from Af-rica, but economically very different indeed.

MEET THE CONTESTANTS

MAURITIUS

In 2007, Mauritius surpassed Botswana with the highest overallranking in sub-Saharan Africa on the Index of Economic Freedom andin 2011 ranked 12thglobally with 76.2 points (out of 100), includingan impressive 88 in Trade Freedom and 90 in Investment Freedom,though still struggling with Freedom From Corruption and Prop-erty Rights. Mauritius also ranks in the top 30 most competitivecountries, making it the only African country to make this list. TheWorld Bank ranks Mauritius 20th in the world and 1" in Africa foroverall Ease of Doing Business in their 2011 Doing Business report,ranking 12th in both Starting a Business' and Protecting Investors.Mauritius' unemployment rate in 2010 was 7.5%, while the USstruggled at 9.7%.

Mauritian politics are characterized by coalition-building, cen-trist parties, and a general support for democracy and open eco-nomic policy enabling a strong private sector.

CAMEROON

Cameroon is the ugly cousin. In 2011, Cameroon ranked 168th

(out of 183) for overall ease of doing business, reporting a Paid-inMinimal Capital of 191.8% for starting a business (as a percentageof income-per capita) and a staggering Contract Enforcement timeof 800 days.and costs of 46.6% of the claim. Property Rights arerated as "repressed" in the 2011 Index of Economic Freedom and Free-dom From Corruption; Cameroon's rating for overall economicfreedom was 51.8, placing it in the ranking of 136thglobally.

While once one of the most prosperous countries in Africa,economic mismanagement of the decreased commodity pricesof principle exports in 1980 led to recession and a host of othereconomic problems. In 2009, Cameroon's real unemployment wasaround 13%, while underemployment was at a staggering 75.8%.

27Young American Revolution

Cameroon's government is erratic, with an strong executive-dominated central government which curtails virtually all checksand balances and grants the presidenstotal immunity from pros-ecution for crimes commitred while in'office-s-a term which, sinceApril 2008, is unlimited. Censorship isprevalent and rights of as-sembly, association, press,speech, a;;r freedom from discrimina-tion are routinely abused with no accessible 0; effective courts withwhich to seek legal recourse. ... "

VIVA LA DIFFERENCE

Mauritius is a prime example ofit:>rapidly developing, upper-middle income country in .aregion largely. considered develop-mentally stunted and worthy"df~ity and aid from the developedworld. The statistics on Mauri~us indicate a fairly op~l} economy,but fail to say much more than that. Andfar too many economiststop there. But there is much more to the Mauritian economy thansimple numbers; economies never stand alone and while capitalismand representative government are not synonymous, there is un-doubtedly correlation and interconnectedness between a country'seconomy and its general state of political and cultural well-being.

Generally speaking, Mauritius has a fairly and democraticallyelected government which is integral to its economic liberalization,performing principally regulatory-as opposed to participatory-roles in the' economy, Mauritian citizens 'are largely entrusted todiscern how to best conduct themselves in the international mar-ketplace and are able to take part.in the gradual opening of mar-kets, a process which was transparent in that it took place amidsta national discourse, rather than behind closed doors in talks andcontracts with the IMPor another country.

SAPs have frequently made efforts that appear to liberalizeeconomies, but which all too often result in the stripping of re-sources, little substantive investment, and the fragmentation ofgovernment legitimacy with the rest of society. However, there isan important distinction between liberalization and corporatizationof markets: SAPs enforcing exclusive contracts granting monopo-listic power to otherwise uncompetitive corporations from donorcountries are actually in o~position to economic liberalization. Thegovernments of these countrieslose the exclusive decision-makingpowei: over their countries, yet are still held accountable for thenegative repercussions of the SAPs, because governments must an-swer for all policy decisions-regardless of origination.

When SAPs fail, the problems are twofold: The country ac-crues debt and fragmentation, due to the citizens' loss of trust andfeeling of inclusion in the ,government. This process is cyclical, asthe damaged economy and citizens' loss of desire to participate inthe volatile sy':stemleads to movement out of the formal economyand into the informal economy, which further reduces legitimategovernment income, such as taxes, and distances the country's poli-tics from its economy as well as its people from its politics.

The government ultimately becomes and is perceived as not onlyineffective, but also irrelevant, as it is unable to effectively respondto the actual concerns of its people, because so little economic ac-tivity is conducted in the legitimate, visible realm and therefore can-not be taken under consideration in the government's decisions;no matter how good its intensions, policy will fail to reflect actualgrievances. Transparent and accountable democratic governments,such as we find in Mauritius, benefit from the cooperative nature oftheir citizen-government relationship, as there is ample communi-cation and government accountability is ensured through electoral

28March 2012

ECONOMICDEVELOPMENT& AID IN AFRICA

II Highest overall ranking in sub-Saharan Africa on the Index• of Economic Freedom

s•."I

Ranked 12th glob<lllyon the Index of Economic Freedom

Mauritius also ranlw in the top 30 most competitivecountries, mi'klng it the only African country to make this list

The World Bank rallb Mauritius20th In the world and 1st inAfrica fer overall ease of Doing Business

Mauritius' unemployment rate in 2010 was 7,5'*',while theUS strug~ at 9.7%

II.(J

Property Rig)rts are rated as NrepresseciP in the 2011'ndexof Economil: Freedom

Ca_oon's ratill9 fO!' :.weTaJIeconomic frel'dom ranked it13~th globally int~.2011 Index of Economic Freedom

A staggering Contract Enforcement time of 800 days

Cameroon ranlw 108tb (0\4 of 183) for o\lerall ease ofdoing business

j...

In 2009, C_oon'$ real unemployment was around 13%,whil/aunderemploYJllent was at a staggering 7S,8'lb

••

processes and promoted through cultural values. Though Mauritiuscontinues to suffer from corruption, it is among the least corruptin in its region and above world average.

Cameroon, by contrast, has a dysfunctional government andunstable, heavily monopolistic and nationalized economy largely atthe mercy of international prices for its primary commodity ex-ports: petroleum, cocoa, cotton, and coffee. This institutionalizedhigh dependence on primary commodities results in high instability,perceived-not falsely-by citizens as being a failure of their gov-ernment to act in their best interest. Such action which would entaila degree of protection from--or at least not the facilitation of-external shocks, such as the recent global economic crisis, whichresulted in stagflation for the Cameroonian economy.

DECENTRALIZING THE RAINMARERS

The problematic nature of development research and solu-tions, such as Structural Adjustment Programs, is that they targetthe economy using tunnel-vision, without treating the system asan integrated whole. By examining the attributes of countries ho-listically, it is apparent that development is subject to a wide arrayof factors, all of which play an important role in contributing togrowth.

The rapid successes of the democratic and economically liberalMauritius, contrasted with stagnation of the authoritarian, econom-ically distorted, and monopolistic Cameroon, indicate that liberal-ized, unimpeded, open markets and legirimate market-conduciveinstitutions reinforce each other and enable cohesive multi-sectorgrowth necessary for substantive long-term development and thatthis development paradigm is universally applicable, providing re-newed hope for Africa.

New York University's William Easterly frequently publishes onthe destructive and often self-promoting idealism of the West withits overly-ambitious and expensive goal to definitively "fix" Africa;this obsession with unrealistic goals is dangerous because it doomsAfrica to being perceived as nothing more than a grand problem,one which Africans cannot solve themselves. Easterly has also dis-cussed the differing efforts of planners and solvers, detailing the disap-pointing prospects of large-scale economic planners who prescribeexpensive, one-size-fits-all projects versus the greater promise ofsmall-scale, potentially life-saving creative solutions which the "feeton the ground" solvers formulate to alleviate people's day-to-daystruggles-i.e. those which actually help people.

Alternatives to the current system exist, but the central problemis the overabundance of interventionism in African affairs by ex-ternal institutions-primarily of the developed world. This severelycomplicates internal solvency, by necessitating acquiescence to thepolicing nations of the world acting through international financialinstitutions, who typically refuse to step down in "nation-building"efforts.

One feasible alternative is private loans through organizationslike the Grameen Bank-to and from individuals, rather than na-tions-which could be used as capital to establish and grow lo-cal small businesses, a more substantive privatization effort whichempowers communities, rather than reinforcing dated, neocolonialpower structures.

But when politicians "make it rain," all you get is wet.--Cqit(yn Bates is currentlY stuc(ying Economics at the Universiry of

'xas and leads the UT chapter of YAL Outside of politics, she isinVO!Ve.dwith t:nonp.roftts GENaustin, Austin Pets .Alioe', and

xed Breed Rescue.

GOVERNMENT AND THE ARTSAn artist's argument against federal patronage

Joseph Diedrich

Iwantthe National Endowment for the Arts to be abolished.That statement is usually met with scorn-either I am mind-

lessly regurgitating Republican propaganda or I have no respectfor the arts.

But then it is revealed that I am a fine arts student, that I am amusic major, and that my future livelihood depends on the well-being of the arts. The admonishment is quickly reformulated intobewilderment. Don't I-and all of my friends and colleagues, notto mention the artistic audience who reaps a benefit from the toilsof my friends and colleagues-benefit greatly from the NEA?

What needs to be understood, first and foremost, is that artistsare entrepreneurs in the purest sense of the word; they continuallyseek to produce (create) newer, better, and more diverse products(works of art) for consumers (audiences) to enjoy. While we canrightfully argue about the relative worth of artists (for example,artists are scarcer than car salesmen) and their comparative con-tribution to our standard of living (and therefore how much theyshould be valued), that argument is erroneous to this particulardiscussion. What matters is, regardless of the importance of art insociety, should the federal government be involved in the propa-gation of it in any way?

There are practical arguments for a lack of governmental in-volvement in the arts. The federal government is running absurdlyhigh budget deficits, and because of that, everything from themilitary to entitlements to extraneous programs such as the NEA(regardless of the fact that its budget is small in comparison toother programs) need to be reduced in size or eliminated. In addi-tion, the Constitution lays out no provision for the funding of thearts, and thus any such authority must be relegated to the statesand the people via the oft-forgotten Tenth Amendment. Thesetwo assertions could easily be enough to thoroughly denounce theNEA, but the most damning arguments against the organizationhave yet to be discussed.

According to a report from Americans for the Arts, privatecitizens donate approximately $13 billion per year to the arts, afigure that doesn't include the sales of tickets, paintings, sculp-tures, albums, etc. The NEA, which operates on a budget of onlya couple hundred million dollars, actually contributes only a smallamount in comparison. It is not the raw monetary values that mat-ter, however.

Art should be an unadulterated expression of the artist, andany artist who wants to sell his or her artwork must also respondto the preferences of society. When government, rather than con-sumers, chooses who receives money, it creates an artificial distor-tion of preference in both artist and consumer. Thus, it is not thepreferences of society with whom artists coordinate their efforts,but rather the preferences of government.

30March 2012

Artists are supported and rewarded based on the whim of thepoliticians in power, and this can undoubtedly lead to the cen-sorship of some art and the encouragement of other art, mostdangerously in the form of political propaganda. Of course theNEA assures us that their grants are "competitive" and are basedon merit, but it must be remembered exactly who judges merit insuch a situation.

The NEA has turned art into a subsidized special interest es-sentially no different from any other corporation, organization, orindividual receiving welfare from the government. The citizenry isforced to pay for art that they might not otherwise be interested inand also for art that they might find offensive or sacrilegious. Art-ists who might otherwise fail because of a lack of interest or sup-port for their particular ideologies become cozy in the womb ofthe federal government and are "propped-up" just like GM andAIG. The NEA cannot make the artistic community as a wholebetter off; at best it can make certain artists better off, and even thisis only achieved at the expense of every other artist and at theexpense of the arts in generaL

Government welfare-just as is plainly seen in so many othersocietal spheres-creates a disincentive to progress in the arts.In a world where the consequences of failure are reduced, thereis less of an incentive to push a particular craft forward. This isperhaps the scariest thought of all to me, as an artist myself: thatthe government's well-intentioned plans to support the arts mayinadvertently be preventing the arts from growing as fast and aswide as they otherwise would in the absence of intervention. Theartistic economy is no different from our economy as a whole. Totruly flourish, artists must be left alone to respond to incentivesand to the preferences of the consumer audience.

As mentioned above, the NEA contributes very little to theartistic community as a whole. But it's not about the overall con-tribution. It's about the necessarily arbitrary taxpayer-funded giftone theatre company or painter receives over another; it's aboutfreeing artists from the chains of government welfare; it's aboutreturning art to the free market where the best art can truly berewarded and advanced. When the unconstitutional costs of suchan organization are factored in, the only logical position one cantake is for the elimination of it.

I am an artist. And I am against the National Endowment forthe Arts.

Joseph Diedrich is a Music Composition student at the University ofWisconsin-Madison and Treasurer of the UW-Madison Chapter ofYoung Americans for Liberty. He plans to teach composition at a conserva-tory or university.

YEAR OF YOUTH TRAINING FEATUREHow to Build, Maintain, and Use a Mass Email List

Abigail Alger

Your email list can be yourmost efficient, affordable,

and effective way to mobilizeyour supporters- if you keepa few tips in mind.

WHY annn AN EMAIL LIST?

Communication amongyour active members is han-dled easily in a Google group(http://groups.google.com),Facebook group, or email list-serv provided by your collegeor university. The informal,back-and-forth exchange keepsyou all in touch between meet-ings' and helps you plan yournext activities.

But what about new members? Members "on the fringe," whoattend one or two meetings a semester? Other campus groups?Supporters and donors off-campus? The media? How will youcommunicate with them?

Use your segments toseparate out different test au-diences. You do not use theexact same language in emailsto your professor, your par-ents, and your friends- evenif you are making the samepoint in all three emails.Dothe same favor for your emaillist: use email segments so youcan "talk" to different groupsof people in the tone and lan-guage most natural to them.

Effective list segmentationis the deciding factor betweengood and great email mar-keting. Don't think of youremails as mass communica-

tion, a "blast email" (perish the term!) to be sent to every unfor-tunate soul you know. Think of your emails as mass one-to-onecommunication: relevant, personalized, and targeted messagesbased on list segmentation. You'll be rewarded.

-email provider.MailChimp's "forever free" plan is a great place to start when choosing a

They don't belong on your private list, but if you want a di-rect line to these people-and just the facts on who's interested-then you need to build your emaillist. Right now.

YOUR TOOLBOX

Your tools are neatly contained in one toolbox: your emailmarketing solution. The differences in features among major pro-viders like iContact, Constant Contact, or MailChimp are not sub-stantial for what your group needs. Test -drive their user interfacesin free trials and decide what is easiest for you.

With that said, strongly consider MailChimp's "forever free"plan as you start building your emaillist. For up to 2,000 subscrib-ers and 12,000 emails sent per month, there's no cost for you andyour group- and you still get access to a generous number ofemail marketing tools.

Use your email marketing platform to manage all your con-tacts. Your email "list" contains all the people whose email ad-dresses you have. That entire list is then broken down into sub-sections, called segments. Segments can be defined in two ways:contact category (e.g. media or donor) and subscriber action (e.g.people who opened your last email).

32March 2012

How TO BUILD YOUR EMAIL LIST

First, collect email addresses at every event your group hosts.On sign-up or sign-in sheets, add a line for receiving news fromyour groul;: Some people may be suspicious of spam or sharingtheir email address. You can assure them that they'll only receiverelevant, interesting updates (and then work hard to make goodon that promise!). Also make clear that they can unsubscribe withone click at any time, for good.

Second, add email sign-up forms to your website, blog, and/ orFacebook fan page for your group. The forms should be promi-nently featured. If possible, advertise a bonus to entice people tosign up, like a special download, a ticket to an event, or a promiseof regular, interesting content.

Your email marketing platform will provide you a simple, copy-and-paste template for your website and blog. On Facebook, youmay have to install a simple app. Either way, no technical knowl-edge will be required.

Third, if other groups offer to help build your email list,compose an email to their list that directs recipients to your sign-up form. Interested people can then sign up for your email list

through that form. This process is known as "opting in;" it's thegold standard.

Always resist the temptation to beg, borrow, or buy emaillistsfrom other organizations. That tactic may cause you to violateemail spam laws and have your account frozen by your email mar-keting platform. Plus, in the long run, an emaillist composed ofpeople who opted in to your updates is always much better than anemaillist of people who unwittingly receive your news.

COMPOSING EFFECTIVE EMAILS

Your emails will fall into two broad categories: an update oran ask. An update shares information, highlights successes, andgenerally cheers the email recipients. They know you're doing agood job, and they're happy they're involved in your work. An askrequests that the recipient take an action, whether that's watchinga video, clicking a link, or attending an event.

Plan ahead your email schedule- you can even call it your"editorial calendar"- to mix your asks and updates. Don't sendmore than one email to recipients per week, though, unless it's anextraordinarily exciting situation.

You can break down each email into two parts: the content andthe "header," an unofficial, loose term that groups together therecipient, sender, subject line, and send time.

The principles of good email content are straightforward.Be clear. In general, one email should convey one message;

if you cannot condense your point to one sentence, you're tryingto say too much. (The exception is, of course, a newsletter thatbriefly highlights multiple events.)

Be concise. Make sentences direct, make paragraphs short,and make the body of your email brief as possible. But rememberthat short does not mean sparse, stilted, or half-finished. Chan-nel Ernest Hemingway or even the authors of the Constitution.Make every word count.

Be compelling. Your recipient must understand why youremail matters. Are you working toward a common goal or defeat-ing a common enemy? Your recipient must understand how thistiny puzzle piece fits into the whole.

Be reasonable. Don't overuse emotion or urgency; reservethose for emotional or urgent times. Respect recipients' time bysharing important, relevant news, and they'll reward you by read-ing your emails.

Once your email content is prepared, format your email onlineby logging into your email marketing provider. In general, you'llproduce two versions of every email: an HTML version (withcolors, images, etc.) and a stripped down, plain-text version. Re-cipients will see the version suited for their email program; for themajority, this will be your HTML version. .

At the bottom of every email, include a link for recipients tounsubscribe from your updates. Your email marketing providershould provide clear, step-by-step instructions, or will automati-cally include the information for you.

You must then select your "header" details:Recipient: Select the segment(s) that will or will not receive

your email. An email intended for inactive members should not

go to donors, for example.Sender: Choose the name and email address from which the

message will originate. Follow an individual name with your groupname (e.g. John Smith, Duke Young Americans for Liberty orJohn Smith, Duke YAL, depending on the recipients). Make surethe sender's email address will be monitored, too, as some recipi-ents may reply directly to the email you send them.

Subject Line: A good subject line, like a good newspaperheadline, will draw in recipients to read your email. Make yourrecipient curious or excited, but avoid cutesy tricks and false ad-vertising.

Send Time: Monitor the results of your email to determinethe best time to send emails to your target audience. You can usethis feature to schedule emails in advance as well.

ANALYZING YOUR EMAILS

The most powerful and humbling component of online com-munication is real-time analytics, the hard numbers that tell youwho's reading your content and how they respond to it. Thisinformation is free marketing research for your group; treat it assuch.

The most useful statistics for your emails are:Open rate: This is the percentage of your subscribers that

open your email. The higher the rate, the better; a respectable rateis between 20% and 30%.

Click-through rate: This is the percentage of your subscrib-ers that clicked on links in your email. You can review the clickson individual links to gauge the effectiveness of your calls to ac-tion or to determine which stories were most interesting.

Unsubscribe rate: This is the percentage of your subscribersthat unsubscribed from your emaillist. Watch this number verycarefully.

Bounce rate: This is the percentage of emails you sent that"bounced" or did not reach your subscribers' inboxes. This oc-curs due to incorrect email addresses, full email inboxes, or beingmarked as spam. The lower this rate, the better.

If you see these statistics presented as "unique open rate"or "open rate," judge your email by the unique open rate. Theunique rate treats each subscriber as an individual; the general ratejust counts actions. For example, when one subscriber opens anemail three times, it is counted as one "open" for the unique openrate, but three "opens" in the general open rate.

As you build and contact your mass emaillist, you'll learn whatdoes and doesn't work for your particular list. Be sure to passalong this institutional knowledge to your fellows and successor

. in your organization. With careful attention to detail, a willingnessto. try new tactics as needed, and a consistent dedication to qualitycontent, you'll find your mass emaillist will become a valuable as-set to your campaign or campus activism.

Abigail A£ger is the Director of Digital Communications for theLeadership.Institute. She previouslY worked as a New Media Strategistfor Terra Eclipse and as aJunior Associate for the David All Group.

33Young American Revolution

WHEN BIGGER ISN'T BETTERNow or Never: Saving America from Economic CollapseSen. Jim DeMint, 453 pages, Hachette Book Group, 2012

Jeremy Davis

34March 2012

ment spending is dealing with the overgrowndependency on the federal government that somany Americans have grown accustomed to.

Generations of Americans have been raisedinto a culture of dependency on the govern-ment due much in part to Uncle Sam havinghis creeping hands in everything from welfareprograms and entitlements such as Social Secu-rity to health-care and public education. Withso many reliant on the federal government intheir daily lives, it makes it all the more difficultto make the necessary cuts to get our economicmess in order.

Such a heavy dependency on government,argues Senator DeMint, has withered away

"'The {Jf!Tf«ttmk ttx-lhii; crftical titnelftAmerica~history. DeMirrt le!lsli.sv.'hat."swroog,""M.r'of.iLR"""".getthe_.""'ioi"ft .•t<lfll"'_"""'tic>l" American individualism and our "spirit of in-

- SEA" HAN"lft dependence." Once upon a time, Americanscherished limited government through a con-stitutionally decentralized system of govern-ment that valued individualism. It was thisspirit of self-independence that made Americaone of the freest, strongest, and most prosper-

ous nations in world history. Eliminating our deeply rooted depen-dence on the federal government by restoring these principles issomething we must do, Sen. DeMint contends, if we are to restorefreedom and individualism in limiting government power.

And just as Washington, D.c. has proven time and again, mostof what it touches turns into disaster. The long standing traditionof expanding the federal government through constant centraliza-tion has created many of the problems we are now faced with.Rather than live under a once size fits all policy from Washington,D.c., Sen.' DeMint advocates relocating certain political powersback to the individual states. Decentralizing many wasteful federalprograms dealing with welfare or education back to the state andlocal levels will allow for better management of these programs andwould be a critical first step in reducing big government.

Getting Washington, D'C, out of the way and allowing each in-dividual state and the people to handle these problems is a solu-tion that most closely resembles the intent of our republic in itsfounding. A renewed emphasis on localism and individualism issomething Senator DeMint describes as a rightful solution to theinadequacies of the federal government.

As demonstrated by the rise of such popular movements as theTea Party, many Americans are indeed waking up to the flagrantspending habits of Wi!;,shington,DC.

The elections of strong limited government minded candidatessuch as. current Senators Mike Lee and Rand Paul proved that achange in Washington and the Republican Party is deeply needed.

NOW ORNEVERSAVING AMERICA FROMECONOMIC COLLAPSE

The bigger the government, the greater thespending-an obvious and unfortunate

fact of political life. And you can be sure thatwith a national debt of over $15 trillion, thesize of our federal government is assuredlyone of epic proportions. In fact, spending andaccumulating massive debt is just about theonly thing Washington, D.c. does well. Thereare too few within Congress with a genuine in-terest in cutting spending and are serious aboutreducing America's monumental debt.

Of those few, Senator Jim DeMint ofSouth Carolina stands out as a voice for restor-ing fiscal sanity in a town where such a thing isa scarce commodity. In his book, Now or Never:Saving America from Economic Collapse, SenatorJim DeMint offers up several truly conserva-tive answers to America's economic woes.

In warding off the complete and total ru-ination of America's economy and restoringprosperity once again, Americans must holdpoliticians accountable in getting spending andthe national debt back to levels within the limits of sanity. Wash-ington, D.C's continuing tradition of flagrantly conjuring up newschemes of wasting tax payer money must end. Uncle Sam's fouledeconomic logic that a reduction in new levels of spending repre-sents a cut in total spending, as Congress and the president madethe case during the most recent scramble to raise the debt ceilinglast year, can no longer be deemed acceptable.

One solution that Senator DeMint discusses at length through-out the book is a balanced budget amendment to the U.S.Constitu-tion - otherwise known as the "Cut, Cap, and Balance" act. Thisproposal, which gained traction among many of the more tradi-tional conservative Tea Party favorites but was ultimately cut down,was meant to serve as a more viable compromise in the debt ceilingdebacle.

The acts' supporters, among which included Senator Rand Paulof Kentucky and Senator Jim DeMint himself, sought to cut spend-ing for the next fiscal year, establish spending caps on the way tobalancing the budget, and ultimately pass an amendment to the U.S.Constitution that would require Congress to maintain a balancedbudget by law.

However, such solutions are rendered moot if they lack broadappeal and popular support among the people. Perhaps the greatestroadblock in making any meaningful cuts to the federal governmentrests with the fact that more than half of all Americans are de-pendent on the federal government in one form or another. A keyfactor Senator DeMint points to in putting the reigns on govern-

The rise of these two Tea Party favorites, both of whom were en-dorsed by Senator DeMint during their respective campaigns, rep-resents a necessary change in the Republican Party itself. For toomany years, both the Democratic and Republican parties have beenguilty of succumbing to the temptations of big government.

Getting the Republican Party back in line with its small govern-ment, constitutional roots, writes Sen. DeMint, is the only way tobattle back against the big government types that haunt Washing-ton, DC. The days of Republicans compromising with Democratsin expanding government and restricting freedoms must stop. AsSenator DeMint puts it, the Republican Party is in the process ofbeing rebuilt around our country's founding principles. Restoringa constitutionally limited government, restrained by the small gov-ernment principles enshrined in that very document, is the onlyviable way for the American people to chain down the Washingtonbehemoth.

Of course none of these proposed solutions to cut wastefulspending, reduce the national debt, and shed off our dependencyon Washington, D.C. can occur without a severe reassessment onthe proper role of the federal government by the American people.The more people expect from government, the larger it must be-come. Sen. DeMint recognizes that in order for America to be pros-perous again, the federal government simply needs to do less, notmore. Phasing out federal programs that are either unnecessary orunmanageable by stripping them down to a workable size or hand-ing their functions over to the states is perhaps the only meaningfulsolution.

And not only do we have to alter our perspective of the properfunction of government on the domestic front, but abroad as well.Echoing a much more traditional non-interventionist foreign poli-cy, Senator DeMint suggests that rethinking the role of the UnitedStates around the world is a must if we are actually serious about re-

building our economy. No longer can we continue being the world'spoliceman and no longer can we afford to intervene in every cornerof the globe. ,

If we are truly sincere about eliminating wasteful spending andgetting the economy back on track, then establishing a more afford-able foreign policy while remaining strong in defense is a neces-sary and unavoidable path. The Senator's willingness to take on thisissue as a prominent member of the Republican Party-so longunwilling, as a whole, 'to consider any defense cuts at all-distin-guishes him from his GOP colleagues whose much-vaunted fiscalprinciples stop at the Pentagon's door.

Cutting wasteful spending, balancing the budget, overturningObamacare, localizing education, achieving energy independence,pursuing a sane foreign policy, reforming the tax code and federalentitlements, and generally shrinking the federal government sim-ply cannot be done overnight. Overturning decades of governmentgrowth and intervention will take some monumental effort on thepart of each and every American. Electing individuals who canbe held accountable in keeping government small and following astrict interpretation of the Constitution is the first step in restoringnot only the economy, but our freedoms as well.

The overriding message throughout the pages of Now or Neveris that America is standing on the edge of a cliff and can only besaved if we stand up and join the fight to restore what once madeAmerica great. ''We can win this fight" remarks Senator DeMint,"but only if those who love and understand America are willing tofight. It is up to you. It is up to all of us. It really is now or never."

Jeremy Davis is a graduate of the UniversifY of Cincinnati witha BA in Po/ideal Science. He CIIrrentfy serves as the Ohio StateChairfor Y4Lan~ is afrequent contributor to the YAL blog.

IN AMERICA, THE LAW IS NOT KINGWith Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the PowerfulGlenn Greenwald, Metropolitan Books, 304 pages

Jayel Aheram

ITH LIBERTYA D JUSTICE

FOR SomeHow t~. .w II Uui:!To O. troy ql.UI,lty

and l'~ot.ettill' f'ow.,ful

Just a week before the year ended, 26-yearold single mother Patricia Spotted crow

spent the holidays in prison. It was her firstChristmas away from her children-n<;>wages 2, 4, 5, and 10-after receiving a 12-year sentence for the first-time offense ofattempting to sell $31 worth of marijuana toundercover police officers.

If Spottedcrow had been a former presi-dent, an influential administration official, aHollywood celebrity, or a hedge fund man-ager for wealthy investors, the single mothermight have experienced leniency and com-passion from the criminal justice system. Infact, she might not have even seen the insideof a courthouse for worse crimes. Instead,like most powerless victims of this country,the rule of law will be stringently enforcedwith all the impartiality and dispassion thecriminal justice system could muster.

While the heavy hand of the law is used to incarcerate an in-creasing number of the poor and sentenced for increasingly longperiods for even the most petty of crimes, this same rule of law isrepeatedly abrogated in the name of protecting the very powerfulof this country: the political and financial elites. That this two-tiered justice system exists-one tier to protect powerful from anyculpability in high crimes committed and the other to severelypunish the powerless for the most minor of offenses-representsthe deposition of law as king in America, according to Glenn Gre-enwald in his latest book With Liberry and Justice for Some: How theLaw Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the PowerfuL

Greenwald convincingly illustrates the existence of a two-tiered justice system in America and recounts the systematic ef-forts to dismantle the rule of law as it applies to powerful begin-ning with Gerald Ford's presidential pardon of Richard Nixon tothe current Obama administration's self-serving refusal and ag-gressive prevention of all efforts to investigate the Bush tortureregime.

In his introduction, Greenwald lists the crimes he lays upon theelites: the "global torture regime" of the Bush administration, the"plundering by Wall Street" that led to the still-ongoing economicrecession, the "obstruction of justice" by administration officials,and the widespread fraud that characterized the home foreclo-sures by the largest banks. In every instance, Greenwald claimedthat "the perpetrators were shielded from any legal consequence."

36March 2012

This is in contrast to the aforementionedSpottedcrow or other non-violent offend-ers like her, whose negligible "crimes" areso inconsequential compared to the crimi-nal destruction by the financial elites of thewealth of this nation's middle class and theprolonged suffering they continue to endure.

According to Greenwald, this decades-long undermining of the rule of law not onlydenies justice for those most aggrieved-inthis case, the American people who havebeen spied on, plundered, tortured, andunder the current Obarna administrationeven assassinated-but also perpetuates thechronic lawlessness from the very institu-tions Americans have entrusted to protectthem and provide ever more incentives forthe elites to commit even greater injusticeagainst the American people.

Greenwald rose to national prominenceas a blogger in 2005 when the first controversies regarding theNational Security Agency's illegal domestic wiretapping were dis-closed by the New York Times. Not surprisingly, the most com-pelling chapter of his book is devoted to this saga of flagrantviolations of the law by the Bush administration and the ensuingscramble by officials to secure immunity for the telecoms who co-operated with the administration in law-breaking and shield themfrom any legal consequence.

That the telecoms were acting under the orders of the presi-dent is irrelevant according to Greenwald, when the law explicitlyforbids telecoms from "intentionally engaging in electronic sur-veillance unless authorized by a court." Greenwald argues veryforcefully that the administration's demand for retroactive immu-nity for the telecoms "makes complete mockery of the rule oflaw," contending:

[T]he United States is not supposed to be a countrywhere private actors are permitted to commit crimesand violate laws whenever the president tells them thatthey should. The president has no greater power to au-thorize others to break the law than he does to breakthe law himself.

Greenwald also argues that the president-far from the idea ofan imperial presidency with unchecked powers to bend or breaklaws as he sees fit, as. advocated by many prominent membersof the Bush administration-is bound by Article II of the Con-

stitution to faithfully execute laws. Greenwald puts it succinctly,"lawbreaking is still illegal even if the president says it should bedone."

Indeed, the warrantless spyingcase perfectly illustrates how com-pletely entrenched the idea amongthe powerful elites that certainmembers of this exclusive group,such as the president and membersof his administration, are complete-ly unbound by the rule of law andimmune from the requisite justicethat would be reasonably appliedif the laws were properly executed.This is then extended to the privatecompanies who cooperated in thelaw-breaking. In return for their si-lent complicity, the telecoms break-ing the law were amply rewardedwith multi-million dollar contractsgenerating huge revenues, and thenafterwards were granted completeimmunity from prosecution thattheir law-breaking would normally demand. This mentality is notthe domain of one political party, but has become a bipartisanconsensus as evidenced by the Democrat-controlled Congress'eventual passage of the law that granted retroactive immunity tothese law-breaking telecoms.

This idea is also shared by many outside the Capitol, with manyof the more vocal calls for full-scale immunity originating frominfluential voices in the corporate media. Greenwald condemnsthe immunity law as "one of the most striking pieces of evidencethat the royal Beltway court and its corporate partners placedthemselves above and beyond the reach of the law evenfor themost blatant transgressions."

It turns out that this bipartisan repudiation of the rule of lawcontinues from one administration to the next regardless of partyaffiliation. In the chapter "Too Big to Jail," Greenwald details theObama's administration's sidestepping of the rule of law to shieldthe very financial elites responsible for the economic crisis.·Ac-cording to Greenwald, President Barack Obama went as far aselevating these same elites from Wall Street to positions of powerthat will enable them further control over the economy's machina-tions. He argues that the appointment of Timothy Geithner as hisTreasury secretary was precisely because of Geithner's close tieswith Wall Street. Because Obama "had been a major beneficiary.of Wall Street's largess," there is an expectation that this friendli-ness will be return in kind.

"[THE]

belong in the private or public sectors-are above the law.Yet Greenwald reserves his strongest polemics in the chapter

devoted to the Obama's administration refusal to prosecute thecriminals responsible for the Bushtorture regime. In that chapter, Gre-

BETWEEN enwald details the aggressive pre-vention by the Obama administra-

ELITES GUU.TY OF tion of all efforts to investigate thewar crimes committed by the previ-

AND ous administration. Obama went asfar as pressuring the Departmentof Justice to not initiate criminalproceedings, which Greenwald con-tends amounts to transforming theJustice Department from an "inde-pendent law enforcement agencyinto a political arm of the White

COLLABORATION

POLITICAL ELITES WE ENTRUSTED TO

PROTECT US FURTHER ENTRENCHES THE

THE FINANCIAL

PLUNDERING THE COUNTRY

IDEA THAT THE POWERFUL - WHETHER

THEY BELONG IN THE PRIVATE OR PUBLIC

SECTORS - ARE ABOVE THE LAW."

Greenwald strongly condemns the Obama administration'scollusion with the very financial elites responsible for the whole-sale destruction of this country's economy, calling it a "rancidstate of affairs" and "the hallmark of lawlessness and tyranny."The resulting collaboration between the financial elites guilty ofplundering the country and political elites we entrusted to protectus further entrenches the idea that the powerful-whether they

House."Citing the need to "look forward

not backwards," Obama echoed thevery same spurious reasoning thatFord used to justify the pardoningof Nixon. This hostile unwillingness

to enforce the law and prosecute crimes of the previous adminis-tration is self-serving; after all, the Obama administration's refusalto prosecute the Bush torture regime is in itself a crime. Green-wald laments that the Obama administration's resistance to anysort of accountability and lack of desire to prosecute wrongdo-ings ensure that the bipartisan "culture of impunity" will continuefrom one administration to the next.

"In the long run," he says "immunity from legal accountabilityensures criminality and corruption will continue."

Wholly depressing in its inarguable citation of facts and recenthistory, Greenwald's book is a breathless and damning indictmentof the bipartisan effort to abrogate of the rule of law and eviscer-ate the very American principle of equality under the law. Green'-wald convinces that the neutering of law to shield the elites fromjustice leads to the creation of a two-tiered justice system- thatprotects the favored and punishes the oppressed.

Just as Thomas Paine once did, Greenwald rightly worries thata society that forsakes the rule of law will inexorably lead to tyr-anny. His argument for the rule of law and for it to be appliedequally is an acknowledgement of the harsh reality we live in: thatgiven the opportunities that immense power provides-from theunchecked accumulation of ill-gotten wealth to the complete ab-rogation of justice-only the objective, impartial, and equal en-forcement of the supreme laws of this land will serve as effectivechains against the natural tendency of men to tyranny.

Otherwise it would be that in America, law is not king.

Jqyel Aheram is a student journalist, Iraq War and Marine veteran,internationally-published photographer, artist, and polymath. He is ablogger at Young Americans jor Liberty, RedS tateEc!ectic, and Copyfas-dsm Watch, and a sometimes contributor to RT International.

37Young American Revolution

,

II

PRECEPTS AND OPERATION

sealed off from accountability to the people."Americans are quite literally watched day andnight by cameras, wiretaps, algorithms, and allother sorts of oppressive technology.

Arnn says of the administrative state, "Thewhole system is arbitrary, complex and shroud-ed in mystery." While it would have been im-possible for him to chronicle every abuse of theadministrative state, his omission of the surveil-lance state is noteworthy and regrettable, lend-ing a partisan air to an otherwise apt critique ofgovernment abuses.

For all of his gripes about governmentgone wild, Arnn concedes that government isnot alien but necessary. The Declaration wasconcerned with peoples, "who have a stand-ing in nature .. .it is natural for people to formpeoples." So while it is natural for people towant to rid themselves of a bad government,it is equally natural to want to establish a justgovernment. The Declaration lays the generalrules for that arrangement. Those rules, states- /'

the Declaration, are to be found in the "Laws of Nature and ofNature's God," the natural laws of life.Iiberty, and property (or the"pursuit of happiness" as it is termed in the Declaration).

The crux of natural law is that all men are created equal andendowed with the same rights. Arnn clarifies "equality" in an excep-tionally clear and vivid manner. Clearly, an NFL offensive linemandoes not seem equal to most men his age, just as an undergraduatestudying Elizabethan poetry would seem to excel beyond her collegeaged peers. Despite these seemingly gaping inequalities, Arnn arguesthat it is rationality that brings all humans together. This entitles mento "govern the nonrational parts."

But what of the rational parts--other men? Ids only with writ-ten consent that the "virtuous" of society can lead. And it is theprinciple of equality that provides for such a system, since, as Madi-son said, "If men were angels, no government would be necessary.If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controlson government would be necessary." A medium was found.

Slavery and racism, however, left an ugly mark on American his-tory. Black people and other minorities had no rights and could notchoose their own leaders. White men were able to rule over whatthey saw as "nonrational parts." Hence an important question: Werecertain Founders, who held slaves while preaching about the won-ders of individualism, hypocrites? Arnn makes a flimsy case thatthey were not. Even though Jefferson had slaves of his own, heactively fought against slavery in his writings and career in govern-ment. His work for the cause of liberty outweighed his own per-sonal misgivings. But, even by Arnn's own definition of "hypocrite"

38March 2012

The Founders' Key: The Divine and Natural Connection Between the Declaration and the Constitution

and What We Risk by Losing It

Larry P.Arnn, Thomas Nelson, 224 pagesBrian Beyer

TIlEFOUNDERS' KEY

LA RRY P. ARi\ 1\

Disregard for the Constitution was fash-ionable for much of the 20th and 21"

centuries--think the New Deal, Great Society,the post-9/11 Surveillance State, etc.-butcontempt towards one of America's foundingdocuments is no longer being left unanswered.Thanks to the Tea Party, Americans are onceagain scrutinizing the actions of goveEnmentand theconstitutionality oCthose actions.

Dr. Larry P. Arnn, president of iiber-con-servative Hillsdale College, set out to remindAmericans that it's not only the Constitutionthat deserves a closer look, arguing that theDeclaration of Independence is inextricablytied with the Constitution and equally deservesthe liberty activist's attention. This "divine andnatural connection between the Declarationand the Constitution" is essential if one wishesto maintain the America that was fought forover 200 years ago. If these two documents andthe glue that binds them are forgotten, Arnnwarns that the America of yesteryear will belost and forgotten in his newest book The Founders' Key: The Divineand Natural Connection Between the Declaration and the Constitution andWhat We Risk byLosing It

Arnn contends that the history of the United States is one influ-enced by the meaning of America's birthday, the occasion on whichthe Founders signed the Declaration of Independence:

On the one hand, it is a specific day, marked in mem-ory of specific things done by specific people in a specificplace. On the other hand, it is a day for the ages and foreverywhere.

The lessons learnt from this document are both timeless and timespecific, universal and relevant only to one country and people. It isthe job of the Constitution.Arnn argues, "to institute and to guardthis combination." American history has generally been defined bythe ebb and flow of those who have "endeavored to embrace" thiscombination, and those who have "endeavored to escape it."

Arnn rightly attacks those who have "endeavored to escape," butnotably exempts those on the right from his criticism. Most of hisire is directed towards Obamacare, the Consumer Financial Protec-tion Bureau, the "administrative state," Cass Sun stein, and NancyPelosi. This criticism is undoubtedly deserved as "an evolutionarystandard of rights" was never envisioned by the Founders. Never-theless, Arnn devotes all of his attention to the overuse and abuseof positive rights while not once mentioning the egregious infringe-ment of negative rights during the post 9/11 era. The Americansurveillance state, an alphabet soup of notoriously secret govern-ment and private agencies, has powers that "are both sweeping and

("a man who pretends to virtues he does not have"), Jefferson failsthe test.

Arnn is quick to note, though, what happens when the Declara-tion and equality are forgotten or ignored. People such as John C.Calhoun and other pro-slavery figures used the concept of inequal-ity to push their agenda of prosperity for ostensibly superior peopleat the expense of the supposedly inferior. This gross injustice is theproduct of the abandonment of the "principles and institutions ofthe Revolution."

But even as hopeless as it may seem in this day and age, Arnnwants to preserve these principles and institutions rather than aban-doning them. The relationship between the Constitution and theDeclaration is "a question of the meaning of the nation." If theyare both "necessary" and "mean different things," then the UnitedStates has never really been a united nation.

Arnn does a masterful job of explaining this relationship and itsrepercussions. James Madison, during the Constitutional Conven-tion, justified the Constitution itself by citing the right of the peopleto "abolish or alter their governments" as they see fit. He also rea-soned that republicanism, which is enshrined in the Constitution,was the only system of government compatible with the Declara-tion's principle of self-government.

Perhaps the most interesting parts of the book are the com-parisons between the Constitution, the Virginia Constitution andthe Massachusetts Constitution. Arnn, clearly a student of history,remarks on their incredible similarities in style, substance and lan-guage. The point that Arnn makes is simple, obvious and powerful:All levels of government must be constrained, and the people sub-jected to its power must be treated as equal individuals. Such is thefoundation of American government. The crux of Arnn's argumentcan best be conveyed in his own words:

The central precepts of the American government arefound in the Declaration of Independence, and they en-compass the inseparable conceptions of nature, equality,rights, and consent. To know the purposes of the UnitedStates is to understand these terms.

Constitutional rule operates in service to these prin-ciples. Its genius is its ability to deploy but also restrainthe use of power and to capitalize on voluntary action toadvance the public good.

This vital connection that has done so much, says Arnn, is the"Founders' key."

Dr. Arnn undoubtedly finds the principles and consequencesof the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution worthyof admiration and defense, especially at such a critical juncture inAmerican history. He is not alone, of course. Many other noble menand women are now fighting to restore the American republic to itsprinciples of liberty.

But no matter how well-intentioned and well-written the Con-stitution is, with all of its protections against the evils of big gov-ernment, America is still burdened with Obamacare. And the PA-TRIOT Act. And endless wars. And business-killing regulations. Isthe Constitution still worthy of all this devotion? Arnn seems to sayyes, bur my own answer is not so certain. After all, a parent whogive rules and boundaries to his children but doesn't enforce themwould never be asked to be on the cover of a parenting magazine.

Brian ~ studies Arabic and French at the University of Buffalo.

39Young American Revolution

PROFILES IN LIBERTY

THE JESTER OP LIBERTARIANISM - DAVE BARRY

Every single year the ball drops inNew York City's Times Square,

people sing Auld Lang Syne all overthe world, and Dave Barry puts out hisYear in Review. It's a literary momentmany people, including this writer,look forward to every year. New Year'sDay has not arrived until Barry's Yearin Review has been published.

Barry is a Pulitzer Prize winninghumor columnist who from 1983until 2005, approximately a thousandyears by my math, wrote a column forthe Miami Herald which touched on

Trent Hill

subjects like the atmosphere in Wash-ington ne. and getting a colonosco-py-Okay, he writes about trudgingthrough excrement, you say, but whatelse? Exploding poptarts, Barbie dolls,and incredibly stupid governmentprograms. Barry brings a certain ir-reverence to any topic he writes about.His aim is certainly not to offend; hesimply does not care whether or notsomeone is offended in the processof his making a joke or two. Indeed,Barry argues that everyone is offendedby something someone says. To haveto avoid offending others would be an exercise in futility, not to

in a military capacity during VietnamWar by claiming conscientious objec-tor status. Barry certainly has no lovefor that conflict, calling it "a terriblemistake," but emphasizing that his"beef is with the politicians, not thesoldiers, who only did their duty." Rea-sonable enough.

Dave Barry is a libertarian both injest and in his most serious moments.Nor is his commentary about the in-efficiency (read: stupidity) of govern-ment aimed only at certain sectors.Of the Department of Education,he noted that, "The more billions ofdollars we give to the Department ofEducation, the worse our educationalsystem becomes." When asked if therewas any particular issue, department,or program that he felt was off-limits,he answered matter-of-factly, "No, Ithink pretty much everything the gov-ernment does is fair game."

Much of his commentary centerson the national government, not be-cause of a political agenda, but because"local governments are subject to thesame problems, but their budgets are

smaller, which prevents them from blundering on the scale yousee in Washington." This is certainly true-it is the differencebetween seeing someone fall off of their bicycle and watchingsomeone tumble from a ten foot tall pink unicycle.

Okay, so he makes fun of government and he avoided theWar in Vietnam, that alone does not make him a libertarian or adefender of liberty. This is true, but Dave Barry, whether throughhis humor or his occasional serious commentary, is someone whoidentifies as a libertarian, though he noted in the interview thathe does not "participate in any organized libertarian activities"-stating that he thinks "organized libertarian activities" might bean oxymoron. When asked, he will admit to having voted in re-cent presidential elections, but will not share whom he voted forbecause, well, "I don't think that's anyone's business."

Still not convinced of his libertarian bona fides? Every liber-

Dave Barry at the 2011 Washington Post Hunt

mention a severe restriction of speech.Dave Barry's humor eviscerates the mystery, seriousness, and

mythology surrounding government at the local, state, and es-pecially national leveL His caustic wit does not come from somefundamental understanding about how government works (ordoes not work), but rather from his simple observations. In aninterview with Reason Magazine in 1994, he said, "I don't have anyinsight or understanding on anything about the government. All Ithink is that it's stupid." Sure sounds like a libertarian.

Barry attended high school and college in the radical 1960s, sosome might argue his petulance against government programs ispartly inspired by that period of radicalization. Being the son of aPresbyterian minister and attending school at a Quaker-affiliatedcollege, Haverford College, helped Dave Barry to avoid serving

40March 2012

tarian has a "come-to-Jesus" moment, but not everyone can claimthat the editor of Freeman Magazine was the man who convertedthem. Barry can. He credits Sheldon Richman with his conver-sion to a libertarian mindset when they were both reporters inPhiladelphia who covered the same beat and ended up at manyof the same events. Barry remembers, "I use to argue with hima lot; I thought he was crazy"-Sound familiar?-" ...the more Igot to see the workings of government up close, as a journalist,the more I got to see his point. It took me a couple years to comearound, but I did, and eventually I wrote Sheldon a letter tellinghim he was right."

As a longtime journalist, author, and columnist, Dave Barryhas been a part of the media world for decades now. Does themedia have a bias against libertarian ideas or personalities? Barrydid not think so:

Not so much bias as cluelessness. I think the media tend tolump libertarians in with Republicans, or conservatives in gen-eraL That's OK when you're talking about cutting governmentspending, but not when you're talking about military interven-tions, drug laws, gay marriage and many other issues.

Barry cuts right to the heart of the issue, show.ing that whilelibertarians are sometimes identified with the Republican Party,they are hardly the same group of voters and thinkers as conser-vatives or run-of-the-mill Republicans. Does Barry get negativefeedback from his libertarian-themes? "I generally don't respond.If people disagree with me, that's fine. I will say that when I mockbig government, I get a lot more positive responses than negative

ones."For several elections now, Dave Barry has continually run a

mock-campaign for President as a libertarian. He wants drugs le-galized, gay marriage to be permitted, and a more sensible foreignpolicy. His mock campaign is more respectable in many ways thana number of actual campaigns that come to mind. Barry doesn'tstrike one as a person who actually wants to run the federal gov-ernment-I alleged that he might just be angling for the personalfashion allowance the President receives and Barry quipped, "Ofcourse not. I also want the jet."

Barry also used to promote an $8.95 tax plan in conjunctionwith his mock campaign, which you might notice seems a lotlike a certain "999" plan promoted by one Herman Cain. Whenquestioned about this, Barry said, "He stole it from me. He alsogroped me on a number of occasions." Well, who hasn't beengrabbed a few times by the Godfather of Pizza, right?

Dave Barry is never going to be confused for a political phi-losopher, a serious candidate for President, or a political com-mentator of repute. He is the jester who keeps us entertained. Inthe process he points out that the emperor has no clothes, thatthe emperor isn't all that great and benevolent, that the emperorseems to be downright detrimental to the average citizen-andhe does it all while making us laugh.

Trent Hill is a freelance writer and blogger working in Baton Rouge,Louisiana. He recentlYgraduated from Louisiana 5 tate University.

A REPORTER'S FIRST-HAND LOOI{At the Occupy Wall Street Protests

Michelle Fields

"I have a two-year old in the back. All I'mtrying to do is go home. I mean serious-

ly, guys-can we use some common senseplease?!"

I caught these words on camera while cover-ing the Occupy DC protests of Fall 2011 forthe Daily Caller. The speaker's apparent of-fense was ownership of a luxury Suv, whichhe was attempting to drive past the conventioncenter housing Americans for Prosperity's De-fending the American Dream Summit.

Occupy protesters had surrounded the con-vention, forming roadblocks through whichonly inexpensive cars were allowed to pass, re- Michelle Fieldsciting "We are the 99%" as Summit attendeesattempted to enter and exit the conference building, and chanting"F-ck the Daily Caller" at my camerawoman and me.

The chaotic atmosphere made it unsurprising that at least oneelderly attendee of the Summit took a dangerous fall on the stepsoutside the building, while the protesters were in turn outragedwhen a driver who ran over two Occupy members was not ap-prehended by the police.

A month later, I traveled to New York City to cover the Occu-py movement's central protest, the camp in the financial district'sZuccotti Park, for their "shut down Occupy Wall Street" event.The atmosphere in NYC was equally chaotic, but it was apparentthat the police were instigating the violence, not the protesters.

My camerawoman captured footage of a young woman facedown on the sidewalk. A protester from the West Village filled mein on the back story:

[The police] slammed that girl's face into the pave-ment ... I mean this is our taxpayers' dollar paying theirsalaries, and this is what we get. We can't even-wecan't even stand on the sidewalk and voice our opinionanymore at the place where [Wall Street bankers] drovethis country into the ground.

Protesters accused police officers of punching a protester forno reason and screamed: "What do your children think of you?How do you look at your children?" A bloodied 20-year old pro-tester named Brandon Watts was held, crying, in police custody ashis fellow protesters screamed that he be let go and given medicalassistance.

Meanwhile, the denizens of Wall Street showed up for a coun-rer-protest, carrying signs suggesting Occupiers "get a job," or"occupy a desk." One Wall Streeter inquired:

Since when did it become time in America that weget punished for pursuing excellence? We're supposedto be chastised for being in the 1%? Our parents taughtus to go after being in the 1%. You want to be in the top

1% of your class. You want to be in thetop 1% of the wage earners. You want toexcel; you want to be great. We're gettingchastised for trying to pursue the Americandream and being great.

He went on to suggest that the money spenton security and sanitation for the protests couldhave been used to maintain bus services forNew York City middle schoolers, implying thatthe Occupiers' protests were doing more harmthan good, even for their own cause.

As reports of police brutality, Occupier van-dalism and lack of hygiene, and a still-stagnanteconomy not buoyed by Wall Street bailoutsand other stimulus spending continued to rollin throughout the latter months of 2011, it's not

hard to be a little sympathetic with both the OWS protesters andsome of their opponents. As the protests continue and the smoke(or rather, pepper spray) gradually clears, however, three thingsare certain:

1. Occupiers need to shape up if they want to be effective.As Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist pointedout, the Occupy Wall Street movement going to damage its ownmessage if it continues "to annoy middle class Americans." He'sright. If Occupiers want to gain a friendly ear for their messageand put the better parts of their anti-corporatist, anti-bailout mes-sage to good use, a change of tactics is likely in order.

2. Support for police brutality isn't conservative. Whilemany conservatives justifiably condemn much of the Occupymovement, it is vital that they don't make the further leap to sup-porting brutal actions by the police against protesters. It's true thatthese protesters are far rowdier and less concerned with the ruleof law than are Tea Partiers, but it's also true that they are Ameri-cans and we must, like Voltaire, "defend to the death" their rightto say things we disapprove of.

3. Occupiers shouldn't blame the free market, they shouldblame Crony Capitalism. In December 2011, unemploymentrates were the lowest they'd been in almost three years. Goodnews, right? Well, not when you realize that the December ratesonly bring us back to March 2009, hardly a time of prosperity.This lack of economic improvement in the face of so much gov-ernment intervention in the economy in those three years shouldmake it more than obvious by now that the Occupiers and theirstrange bedfellows, fiscal conservatives, are very right about thefact that bailing out the government's friends on the taxpayer'sdime is neither moral nor effective.

Michelle Fields is a reporter at The Dai!J Caller.

\42

February 2012