American Policy Center » 2003 » March
- We Hold These Truths to Be Self-Evident?
- Any Nation That Can Put A Man On the Moon Can Get Rid of the EPA
- We Must Change The UN Debate – Expose Its Real Threat
- The UN's Dirty Little Secret
- Center Opposes 'Green Welfare' Funding For EPA 'Attitude' Training In Nation's Schools
- The Parent Trainers: The Coming Invasion of In-Home Social Workers
- The Time is Now… The United Nations – Irrelevant and Dangerous
- Senate Poised to Vote on Huge Land Grab
- Statement of Peyton Knight Legislative Director American Policy Center
- National Heritage Areas Opposed at Senate Hearing: Loss of Property Rights, Local Economies Would Suffer
by Tom DeWeese
Not long ago, I joked that someday an American family might find, to their horror, that the family next door was forced to sell their house to a herd of buffalo under the fair housing statutes of the Civil Rights law. And the home-owners association would be helpless to stop the new residents from practicing their native religion of stampeding through the neighborhood – for fear of a discrimination suit. I WAS JOKING! But in today’s age of “anti-reason” be careful what you joke about. It may just be someone else’s political agenda.
Since the beginning, we called them nuts. Some said that was too harsh. Well, you be the judge. Animal Rights?
ANIMAL LAW
This Fall, Harvard University will offer a course in “animal law.” The course will be taught by Steven Wise of the Massachusetts Center for the Expansion of Fundamental Rights. Wise has argued that “fundamental rights” should be extended to Chimpanzees. Of course, in scholarly circles the debate is raging – why only give the rights to Chimps? Why not to infectious germs too? After all they have a right to choose a habitat in your body.
As Maggie Gallagher writes in The Washington Times, “Animals make the best clients. You get to decide what rights they want.” Where there is a lawyer, there is a class-action lawsuit waiting to be filed. But who would pay, you ask? Silly question. The human taxpayers of course. It’s only fair. We’ve made animals carry our burdens for centuries without compensating them. Now it’s pay-back time – or, if you will, “animal reparations!”
ANIMAL SLAVERY
Now do you think that last line was another joke? No sir. I’ve learned my lesson. There are no jokes or absurd ideas when it comes to Animal Rights.
Animal Rights activists are busy combing through historic legal records, exploring whether laws against slavery can be used to gain “equity under the law” for animals. Says Joyce Tischler, executive director of the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF), “During the period when black people were slaves, some slave owners chose to give their slaves their freedom through various common-law methods…we are exploring those sorts of common-law methods by which human beings who were in a status of property…were granted full rights.”
NOW COME THE PRESSURES FOR LEGISLATION
In San Francisco, California, an animal rights group has begun a campaign to demand that the city phase out the legal concept of pet ownership, replacing the term “owner” with the more egalitarian “guardian.” Elliot Katz, a licensed veterinarian and president of the group, In Defense of Animals, contends, “Society first moved away from women and wives as property, then it moved away from African Americans as property. Now a large segment of people are beginning to move away from the concept of animals as property.”
Meanwhile, People for the ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA), has launched a major campaign against McDonalds over animal issues. The group is launching a billboard, bumper sticker, print ad and T-shirt campaign that features such images as a slaughtered cow’s head and the slogan, “Do you want fries with that? McDonald’s. Cruelty to go.” Another shows the company’s clown mascot Ronald McDonald holding a bloodied butcher knife and reads, “Son of Ron – America’s No. 1 Serial Killer.”
The campaign is perfectly in line with PeTA Founder Ingrid Newkirk’s famous analogy of Nazi Holocaust death camps to chicken farms. She says only seven million people died in those camps – but billions of broiler chickens die each year.
THE ROOTS OF CIVIL INSANITY
The fatal flaw in Karl Marx’s Idea of a perfect society was the fact that we are people and not ants. We have ideas, wants, dreams, goals and desires. And we have an individualistic streak that no set of group rights can satisfy.
The fatal flaw in the idea of animal rights is that animals aren’t people. “Rights” are a human concept. We recognize certain moral concepts or rules in order for society to function. Animals don’t. If they want something they take it. Their order of society is the concept of survival of the fittest. There is no mercy for the weak. No compassion for the dumb. No recognition of boundaries. A “right” is the will to be responsible to ourselves – a moral concept.
Animals-Rights advocates have confused the line between animal rights and animal welfare. It is welfare of the animals that the average citizen thinks he is supporting when discussing the fate and future of animals. “Welfare” according to Webster’s dictionary, is “the state of being healthy and free from want.” Isn’t that what you want for the poor suffering dog that finds its way to your porch looking for food?
So, where do such ideas come from? How do they grow into such strong political movements? The animal-rights movement, which considers man to be little more than a cancer on the earth, is preying on the compassion of the child who wants to help the kitty or the senior citizen who treats the family dog as one of the children.
No one wants to see animals suffer. So too, no one wants them to buy the house next door.
ANIMAL RIGHTS
POLITICAL RADICALISM – NOT CONCERN FOR ANIMALS
They use our emotions and compassion to sucker good-hearted Americans into their radical political agenda. The truth is, animal-rights advocates represent one of the most absurd, violent, destructive elements in our society. Animal Rights advocates oppose animal welfare. Americans who love animals and seek to help them must understand that the goals of Animal Rights advocates will do away with wildlife management, veterinary medicine or captive breeding as well as medical testing, which is vastly responsible for today’s modern medical miracles. They not only oppose pet ownership, but private ownership of anything. If they can get us to give up our pets, then we can be persuaded to give up owning anything.
NO CONCERN FOR ANIMAL WELFARE
“The theory of animal rights simply is not consistent with the theory of animal welfare…Animal rights means dramatic social changes for humans and non-humans alike; if our bourgeois values prevent us from accepting those changes, then we have no right to call ourselves advocates of animal rights.” -Gary Francione, former general council, People for the ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA).
“Not only are the philosophies of animal rights and animal welfare separated by irreconcilable differences…the enactment of animal welfare measures actually impedes the achievement of animal rights.” -Gary Francione and Tom Regan. “The Case for Animal Rights”, In Defense of Animals, 1985
“We were not especially interested in animals. Neither of us had ever been inordinately fond of dogs, cats, or horses in the way that many people are. We didn’t love animals.” -Peter Singer, known as the “father of animals rights.”
“I don’t believe that people have the right to life. That’s a supremacist perversion. A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy.” -Ingrid Newkirk, co-founder and national director of PeTA
ANTI-HUMAN
“Man is the most dangerous, destructive, selfish, and unethical animal on earth.” -Michael Fox, vice president, Human Society of the United States
“Mankind is the biggest blight on the face of the earth.” -Ingrid Newkirk, PeTA
“Six million people died in concentration camps, but six billion broiler chickens will die this year in slaughterhouses.” -Ingrid Newkirk, PeTA
ANTI – BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH
“If the death of one rat cured all diseases, it wouldn’t make any difference to me.” -Chris Rose, director Last Chance for Animals
“An (animal) experiment cannot be justified unless the experiment is so important that the use of a brain-damaged human would be justifiable.” -Peter Singer
“Even if animal tests produced a cure (for AIDS), we’d be against it.” -Ingrid Newkirk
“If it (abolition of animal research) means there are some things we cannot learn, then so be it. We have no basic right not to be harmed by those natural diseases we are heir to.” -Tom Regan, “America’s New Extremists: What You Need to Know About the Animal Rights Movement.”
ANTI-PET OWNERSHIP
“Pet Ownership is an absolutely abysmal situation brought about by human manipulation.” -Ingrid Newkirk, PeTA
“(Pets) are slaves, even if well-kept slaves.” -PeTA’s Statement on Companion Animals
For more information on Animal Rights radicalism, read: Animal Scam, The Beastly Abuse of Human Rights, By Kathleen Marquardt. Available from The DeWeese Report for $24.00. This best-selling book is now being used as a text book in several universities and colleges. Call 703-925-0881 to order your copy.
There is certainly no shortage of big thinkers down at the ol’ Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). While the agency attempts to regulate everything on Earth from water consumption to auto emissions, the truly far-sighted control freaks have turned their heads to the stars – Mars to be exact.
Recently, a memo to EPA employees announced that their reach has gone universal. “As human exploration of Mars and other planets moves from the realm of fantasy to real possibility, a host of environmental questions arise. Could exploration or colonization inadvertently endanger life forms that might exist on other planets, could they pose any risks to Planet Earth if brought back by astronauts? Looking at lessons from our own planet, what steps should we take to protect other planetary bodies in the Solar System?”
Men from H.G. Wells to George Lucas have searched the stars and dreamed of one day going there. In fact, we were once well on our way, even making it to the Moon. But…(sigh) that was before the EPA existed. So H.G., George, forget your dreams. No spaceship will ever pass the environmental impact study. And there will never be an interplanetary bar scene like George created in the first Star Wars. The big thinkers know best. Man is doomed to stay put – well ruled and regulated.
Many who advocate American withdrawal from the United Nations believe theirs is a lost cause. They see little or no movement in the Congress or in American attitudes to indicate a willingness to expel the UN. Can we ever hope to win this battle and save America’s precious freedoms and sovereignty?
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Most elected officials and American citizens viewed the UN as a positive force in the world. Most who still think that way believe the UN is essential as a forum to debate international disputes, instead of fighting wars. That is the rhetoric used to sell the UN and continues to be its image. |
But in fact, we have made great strides in the battle to get the truth out about the UN over the past few years. Not long ago, the only organized opposition to the UN was that of the John Birch Society. It was a lone voice that was quickly labeled “extremist.” However today, there is great debate over America’s involvement in the UN. More and more “mainstream” Conservative organizations are taking up the cry. Even the influential Heritage Foundation has called for American withdrawal from the UN. That fact alone brings the whole issue to the forefront to be debated on the front pages of the leading national newspapers instead of just in the movements mimeographed newsletters.
But there’s much more to cause the UN to have a massive headache. Several Members of Congress have stepped forward to block UN programs and treaties. Congressman Roscoe Bartlett fought a courageous and winning battle to prevent the payment of a phony debt to the UN. Congress actually passed Don Young’s bill against the UN’s world Heritage Sites. And a number of Congressmen in the 105th Congress stepped forward to co-sponsor Ron Paul’s bill to demand the US pull completely out of the UN.
This is progress in what will be a very long battle. Step by step we are beginning to whittle away at UN support. If the battle continues, it won’t be long before it becomes easier to question UN policy, UN funding and UN treaties. Once accomplished, it will become much easier to make the case for a complete pullout by the United States. (Consider, did you ever think you would witness the end of the Berlin Wall?)
Congressman Ron Paul is now ready to engage step two in his battle with plans to reintroduce his UN pullout bill. That is how it is done in Washington. You just keep coming at them and building support for the proposal, step by step.
But in order to succeed, Americans must fully understand the dangers of the UN and its true threat to American sovereignty. How many times have you said, “if only they knew what I know?” In short, you and I have to change the debate.
I have been concerned that even those who oppose the UN do so for the wrong reasons. They know little about its real agenda. Instead they get mad at the use of US soldiers in peacekeeping missions, under foreign commanders. Maddening yes, threat to our sovereignty – no. Even Senator Jessie Helms keeps calling for “UN Reform.” He doesn’t understand that to the UN, reform means strengthening its agenda.
That’s why, as APC prepares to gear up again for the next stage of the battle and help build support for Ron Paul’s bill, I have decided to reprint the article I first wrote in 1997 in support of Congressman Paul’s bill. It explains in full detail why the UN is a direct threat to the sovereignty of the United States.
Help change the debate – show this article to everyone you know. And hold your head up – we are starting to win.
Tom DeWeese
Real Threat of United Nations Not Being Debated
The attitude prevails on Capitol Hill that the United Nations has a negative image simply because it is bloated with a bad bureaucracy. Most Congressmen who express opposition to the UN do so because they say it spends beyond its means, it’s arrogant and is an ungrateful tenant on the Hudson.
Many Republicans object to the use of American soldiers for peace-keeping missions, particularly when those soldiers are placed under the command of foreign officers.
Still, most in Congress, Republican and Democrat, defend the need for the United Nations arguing that the world desperately needs a place for nations to hold debates and air differences as a prevention to war. Most Americans who have a favorable view of the world body are reacting to the UN’s well-crafted image as a sort of international Red Cross that moves into disaster areas and keeps the peace and feeds refugees.
Because these attitudes and images prevail, it is difficult to conduct an honest debate on the true dangers of the United Nations. But, as bad as a bloated, out-of-control bureaucracy may be, and as enraged as Americans get over U.S. troops under control of foreign generals, these are not the real reasons why Americans should fear and loath the United Nations.
There is a much more dangerous agenda afoot in the bowels of the building on the Hudson. And if it is not addressed in a serious manner very soon, America will find itself merged into the international community in much the same way independent European nations are being melted into one union on the Continent. As has been reported over and over again, it is the use of supposed environmental disasters that is the driving force behind the success of the UN takeover.
Starting in 1987 the United Nations began its final drive to restructure the world’s nations into one global village. That year the UN issued a report on so-called environmental disasters, particularly focusing on global warming, ozone holes, poverty of third world nations and over-population. The solution, said the UN report, could only be “a worldwide political transformation that supported sustainable development.”
That transformation, according to UN documents, would include the down-sizing of cities and towns into new “urban clusters” where workplaces, housing and nature are blended together.” America’s elected form of government would be changed to include appointed federal agents and unelected members of private organizations, called “non-governmental organization” (NGO’s) dictating policy at the local level. Provisions granting NGO’s such power are actually written into the treaties coming out of the conferences and, once signed by the United States, become international law.
To promote that agenda the UN has held a series of these conferences around the world, each focusing on specific aspects for worldwide restructuring.
In Vienna the focus was on human rights, particularly the rights of children over their parents. In Cairo, forced abortion and sterilization were put forth as solutions for population control. In Copenhagen the United Nations revealed its daring plan for global taxes that would help finance the international restructuring scheme called for in the environmental agenda. The payment of such taxes would also help finance the UN’s own independent army for enforcement purposes.
In June, 1992 the UN sponsored the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro – the largest and most ambitious international conference of all time.
Here, five major documents – to define and implement the sustainable development agenda – were negotiated.
First was the “Convention on Climate Change” that was to address the issue of global warming. Final draft of that Convention, or treaty, is to be signed this coming December. Regardless of the fact that the theory of global warming has yet to be proven by peer-reviewed science, this treaty will force the industrial nations to pull back emissions output to 1990 levels. Such strict regulations will force industry out of business, cut back on American power output by as much as 60 percent, and place massive consumption taxes on energy.That will drastically increase the price of every item in your home that is powered through the use of energy.
The real purpose of the Climate Change treaty is to redistribute technology and production to undeveloped third world nations – because, incredibly, those nations won’t have to sign the treaty or be forced to obey its dictates. The treaty has nothing to do with protecting the environment.
Only sixteen industrial nations will be bound by the treaty. The Climate Change Treaty will bankrupt the United States.
The second treaty negotiated in Rio was the “Biodiversity Treaty.” As yet unratified by the United States Senate, this treaty would declare 50 percent of all the land in every state as wilderness. American cities would be downsized, technology and industry would be reduced and strict zoning laws would curtail development of our cities.
The third paper from the Summit was the “Rio Declaration” which called for the eradication of poverty throughout the world. What it really provides is a plan for more redistribution of the world’s wealth – particularly away from the United States.
The fourth document from Rio was the “Convention on Forest Principles” calling for international management of the worlds forests, which would essentially shut down the timber industry.
And the fifth document coming out of Rio was “Agenda 21.” This one document contained the full agenda for implementing worldwide sustainable development. That plan was later elaborated upon in Istanbul, Turkey at the UN conference called Habitat II, last June. In a document produced by the United States department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), at the request of the UN for Habitat II, the blueprint was set for how American cities and towns would be restructured for sustainable development. To achieve rapid transition, the document said, all citizens will be trained to think of “ecology, or the diverse systems of earth’s biosphere, as the basis” for every human activity.
Do these programs sound compatible with the Constitution of the United States? Does the UN agenda sound like something the United States should be helping to impose around the world? Can you see the patterns of redistribution and restructuring that drives the UN agenda?
As you can see, the United Nations’ global restructuring agenda is much more dangerous than Congress’ current debate over bloated budgets and peacekeeping forces. American taxpayers and their private property are the target being lustfully coveted by the power elite of the United Nations.
The UN is an open and direct threat to the sovereignty and constitutional rights of all Americans. The UN has chosen to set the agenda.
The UN has chosen to make itself more than an international debating society. The UN has decided that it wants more power. These are the real reasons why the United States must take drastic and forceful action by getting completely out of the UN – a world body out of control.
The facts are simple. Without U.S. participation, there will be no United Nation to attack and loot the U.S. treasury. Above all, the United States doesn’t need the UN to conduct foreign policy or rule or regulate international trade. The United Nations needs the United States for its survival. But the UN threatens the survival of the United States.
Congressman Don Young of Alaska is certainly addressing the threat with his American Sovereignty Protection Act. That bill will take the teeth out of the UN treaties by requiring Congressional oversight before the U.S. bureaucracy can implement their provisions.
But clearly the UN has no intention of “reforming” itself other than to get worse. There truly is no other action the United States can safely take except to get completely away from the threat of the UN. Because of the UN’s own lust for power, the U.S. has no choice but to withdraw.
Congressman Ron Paul of Texas has introduced the bill to take the U.S. completely out of the UN. His bill, “The American Sovereignty Restoration Act,” (H.R.1146) pulls no punches as it calls for repeal of the United Nations Participation Act of 1945, ending U.S. participation in the UN. But Paul’s bill goes even further. It would close the UN headquarters in New York. And H.R.1146 will end all U.S. participation in the UN’s environmental agenda, repeal American participation in UNESCO, repeal diplomatic immunity for UN personnel, will pay no U.S. funds to the UN, and that includes stopping funds or U.S. participation in UN peacekeeping operations.
Most importantly, Congressman Paul’s bill will force intense debate and shine a much needed light on the UN’s real agenda – one that will result in the restructuring of the entire world.
Americans are now mostly in the dark about the UN’s true agenda and its dangers to American freedom. America desperately needs that debate. America needs to enact Ron Paul’s American Sovereignty Restoration Act – now.
You rarely hear of it. No elected official raises an eyebrow. The media makes no mention. But power is slowly slipping away from your elected representatives. In much the same way Mao Tse-tung had his Red Guards, so the UN has its NGO’s. They may well be your masters of tomorrow, and you don’t even know who or what they are.
NGO stands for non-government organization. These are activists such as the Environmental Defense Fund, National Audubon Society, the Nature Conservancy, National Wildlife Federation, Zero Population Growth and Planned Parenthood. In 1968, the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) adopted Resolution 1296 which grants “consultative” status to certain NGO’s.
From the beginning, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) was the key NGO, along with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). When the World Resources Institute (WRI) was founded in 1982, it became the third leg of an NGO triumvirate that is, indeed, the unholy trinity. These three organizations literally control global environmental policy and its international implementation.
How can this be, you ask? How can private organizations control policy and overrule elected officials? Have you ever heard of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED)? 98% of the American public has no idea what UNCED does, yet its impact on our nation and its policies is more profound and frightening than any threat faced in our nation’s history, including that of the Soviet Union.
When the dust settled over the 1992 Rio environmental summit, three major documents were forced on the world that will change forever how national policy is made. They are three treaties or “conventions”, called the Convention on Climate Change, the Convention on Biological Diversity and Agenda 21. Together, they outline environmental policy that calls for, among other things, the taking of 50% of American land to be reverted into wilderness. But more important than all of those documents was the formation of UNCED.
UNCED outlines a new procedure for shaping policy. The procedure has no name. It is not democratic. It is not totalitarian, nor is it dictatorial. It is perhaps best described as “controlled consensus” or “affirmative acquiescence”. It really amounts to a bunch of diplomats and bureaucrats who know they are doing evil, but nervously, with sweat dripping from their brows, move forward with the policy, saying nothing. For this is a barbaric procedure that insures their desired outcome, without the ugliness of bloodshed. It is the procedure used to advance the global environmental agenda.
The UNCED procedure utilizes four elements of power: international government (UN), national governments, non-governmental organizations (NGO’s), and philanthropic institutions.
The NGO’s are the key to the UN’s drive for power. The NGO’s (private organizations) dream up policy ideas. In most cases it’s a new environmental regulation designed to control more property. For example, it was a group of NGOs like the Sierra Club and The World Wildlife fund that came up with the idea for the Biodiversity treaty in 1981.
The policy idea is then adopted by one or more UN organizations for consideration at a regional conference, then at a world conference. Each conference is preceded by an NGO Forum designed specifically to bring NGO activists into the debate. They are trained to prepare papers and lobby and influence the official delegates of the conferences. In this way, the NGO’s control the debate and assure the policy is adopted.
The ultimate goal of the conference is to produce a “Convention”, which is a legally-drawn policy statement on specific issues. Once the “Convention” is adopted by the delegates at the conference, it is sent to the national governments to adopt. Once that is done it binds that nation to international law.
But then compliance to the law must be assured. Again the NGO’s come into the picture. NGO’s are responsible for writing into environmental law the concept of third-party lawsuits. NGO’s now regularly sue the government and private citizens to force policy. They then have their legal fees and even damage awards paid to them out of the government treasury. Through a coordinated process, hundreds of NGO organizations are at work in every community advancing some component of the global environmental agenda.
By using well funded, private organizations to drum up public support for emotional issues like the environment and to lobby elected officials, the UN has been able to control the debate. With the UN-orchestrated environmental message drummed into classrooms, newscasts, movies, television shows, newspaper articles and into virtually every corner of society, mounting opposition to radical environmental law has become almost impossible.
As a result of the constant pounding of the doomsday message, Americans have been convinced to give up their property rights, turn back their technology and even to give up their national sovereignty through documents like the Biodiversity treaty. So effective is the process that American leaders, even the Republican Congress, utter no opposition. Of course, Bill Clinton and Al Gore are leading the charge to support and enhance the UN’s growing power.
The UN is now moving to vastly expand the power and influence of NGO’s. NGO’s will now begin to lobby for the United States to support the UN’s desire for international tax revenue. NGO’s will also be given the power to oversee and implement treaty’s such as the Biodiversity treaty that will give the UN control of American sovereignty. That means private environmental organizations will be given power over our elected officials. Such language is already written into the Biodiversity treaty, and if Congress votes to ratify it, NGO power will be a “done deal”.
Remember who the villains are: The Nature Conservancy, the World Wildlife Fund, National Audubon Society, Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, and so forth – in short, the American environmental movement.
Americans must begin to understand that the debate over environmental issues really isn’t about clean air and water. It is about power. Those who lead the American environmental movement, teamed with the United Nations are the worst jackals the world has seen since Hitler and Lenin.
“When are Republican Congressmen going to wake up to the realization that the Environmental Protection Agency is perilously close to being a subversive entity within our government?” asks Tom DeWeese, president of the American Policy Center. The Center has called on its supporters to contact Congressman Michael Castle (R-DE) whose bill, H.R. 4745, would provide funding to the EPA to cultivate “proper environmental attitudes” in the nation’s school children.
“Just what attitudes would that be?” asks DeWeese. “An attitude that feeds the catastrophic forest fires we’re experiencing by not cutting down a tree for any reason? An attitude that puts everyone at risk of pest-borne diseases by banning pesticides that have protected people for decades? An attitude that mandates reformulated gasoline that has driven up the cost to drivers? An attitude that mandated MTBE, a gasoline additive that is now poisoning water supplies around the nation? An attitude that ignores the Senate’s rejection of the proposed U.N. Kyoto climate control treaty and seeks to implement it anyway? An attitude that advocates vegetarianism?”
Rep. Castle’s legislation, called “The John H. Chafee Environmental Education Act”, would, says DeWeese, “fund every radical environmental group in the nation to further brainwash school children with their apocalyptic, doomsday scenarios. None of this has anything to do with real natural science, real chemistry or real biology. This would give them license and funding to further invade our classrooms.”
The Center is calling on its supporters and others to call Rep. Castle’s office at (202) 225-4165 to register their opposition to this legislation.
“There is ample documentation of the way countless school textbooks reflect the Green message and now Rep. Castle wants to fund a program that would have children indoctrinated with the lies of the radical environmental and animal rights organizations. This is little more than a welfare program for Green organizations who would use taxpayer dollars to fund the same propaganda they would have to pay for out of their own resources. That is a very bad idea and must be defeated,” said DeWeese.
By Stan Watson, Ph.D.
Director of Research, Alabama Family Alliance
It is estimated that substantiated reports of child abuse and neglect only involve approximately 1.5 percent of all children. Actual child deaths as a result of abuse are a small fraction of even these cases. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, substantiated cases of child abuse and neglect have been declining for four straight years. This hasn’t stopped policy makers from coming up with “big government” solutions to this rare and declining problem.
In 1991, the U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect recommended that “the federal government should begin planning for the sequential implementation of a universal, voluntary neonatal home visitation system” The homes of new parents would be subject to visitors who would teach parenting skills and monitor these homes for possible abuse.
In 1992, Prevent Child Abuse America, an advocacy group, launched a nationwide initiative called “Healthy Families America” (HFA) designed to institutionalize “home visitation” child abuse prevention programs in states and communities around the country. As Deborah Daro, former PCAA research director, told Congress, the ultimate goal of this initiative “is to bring home visitation services to all new parents.” This would lead America toward the day when every new parent will be assigned a government-sponsored home visitor to make weekly visits, teach government approved “positive” parenting skills, and monitor the home for possible abuse.
Such a program would be enormously costly and the necessary government funds are not yet available. Due to these “fiscal constraints” the program currently focuses its efforts on first-time parents who have been determined to be “at risk” for committing child abuse.
In spite of the “fiscal constraints,” however, the program is popping up all over. According to PCAA, there are now over 300 HFA sites in operation in 42 states and the District of Columbia. They screened more than 28,000 new parents for child abuse potential in 1997 and provided “home visitation services” to nearly 18,000 families. HFA programs are now costing taxpayers more than $65 million per year. Other organizations and government agencies are involved in the home visitation concept, as well. A recent PCAA survey found that one in five families with children under age one have already received some type of home visitation services from HFA or a similar program.
How Does the HFA Program Operate?
In order to target its services to “at risk” families, the HFA program has developed a screening process to determine whether the parents of a newborn are potential abusers. This involves employing “Family Assessment Workers” (FAWs) who gain access by various means to the medical records of women who are pregnant or have just given birth. According to PCAA materials, “the assessment worker begins each day by checking with hospital admissions to find out who has delivered [a baby] over the past 24 hours.” Then, the assessment worker will, “review the medical record for information on 15 demographic and socio-economic factors” such as marital status, family income, history of emotional or psychological problems, etc.
HFA programs seek the cooperation of hospitals, clinics and physicians to provide this information. In some cases the FAW is allowed direct access to patient records. In other cases, hospital staff do the initial screen of patient records and then notify the FAW of those mothers who meet the criteria.
If the mother meets the “at risk” criteria, the FAW will visit her in the hospital or shortly after she returns home in order to administer the Kempe Family Stress Checklist. This is a questionnaire that asks deep, probing, open-ended questions in order to measure 10 risk factors said to be associated with a propensity toward child abuse. On each issue the respondent is scored from 0 (no risk) to 10 (the highest risk). The father is also questioned, if he is available.
A mother determined to be “high risk” is offered the services of a home visitor. The FAW discusses the family’s needs as these have been revealed through the assessment process. The FAW offers home visitation services as the solution to these needs.
As the process was described in the Orlando Sentinel, the FAW is “part salesperson, part recruiter.” Her job is to sell Healthy Families. “Although preventing child abuse is the program’s mission,” said the Orlando Sentinel article, “the word ‘abuse’ never crosses [the FAW's] lips.” Rather, “she extends an olive branch: Need bottles, breast pumps, things like that when you get home? Such helpfulness is a door-opener.” By offering free items to the needy family, HFA programs achieve a high acceptance rate; as high as 90 percent in some places.
Generally, parents will be contacted at home several times, by phone or in person if they initially refuse the program in the hospital. According to PCAA materials, a case is only to be closed “if parent(s) continue to refuse services for two to four months.” Clearly, it takes several refusals before a targeted mother can expect contacts from HFA staff to end.
Once in the program, participants are assigned a “Family Support Worker” (FSW). This person is often a “paraprofessional” or trained volunteer who may have a few weeks or only a few days of training. One PCAA document acknowledged that more than one in four FSWs have no college training.
According to PCAA materials, the home visitor’s job is to “work with families to identify strengths and specific needs, link them to health and social services, and provide family support and parenting education.” The three basic functions of the home visitor are, first, to teach parenting skills; second, to enroll the family in any social services for which they may be eligible; and finally, we are told in PCAA materials, “the home visitor is a monitor.”
What do HFA Home Visitors Teach?
HFA programs do not use a nationally mandated curriculum for their parenting education. Rather, each HFA program selects its own curriculum materials, often drawing from two or three sources or even developing their own. However, PCAA publishes extensive materials on parenting. These materials give a clear indication of the parenting philosophy of the organization.
The PCAA philosophy is based on the premise that “a major problem all parents face is their limited knowledge of parenting. Few adults have an opportunity to learn any principles of child rearing beyond those they have personally experienced.” This is a problem because, in PCAA’s view, what most parents learned about child rearing from their parents is wrong.
For example, most people learned from their parents the habit of “thinking and saying that your child misbehaves.” According to a PCAA booklet on parenting, “children don’t misbehave.” Parents do need to learn “some effective methods for modifying behavior”, but “labeling the child as misbehaving is not one of them. Nor is punishment, of any kind.”
According to PCAA, parents should have “only a few rules” because “the more rules you have, the harder it will be for our children to remember them.” Furthermore, parents should “give kids a voice” in making these rules because “even a child of five or six can talk with you and help you set fair limits.” If a child disobeys one of these rules, “sometimes” the parent should look to the child for advice. “Your child can help you decide what is fair to do when a rule is broken.”.
PCAA publications are emphatic about spanking. It is “harmful to children.” It teaches children to “solve problems by hitting others.” It is “worse than useless” and it sets “a truly terrible example.” It is “difficult to say”, according to PCAA, “where the line between corporal punishment and abuse lies.” It should not be surprising, then, that in PCAA is dedicated to “the elimination of physical punishment of children” and to encouraging “the education of parents, teachers, and other child caregivers on alternative forms of discipline.”
Do HFA Programs Actually Work?
You would think that having a monitor in the home of potentially abusive families would almost certainly lead to a reduction in the rate of abuse, but in spite of PCAA claims that their program is backed by years of research, evaluators have had great difficulty showing the program to be a success in the most rigorous control-group evaluations. Even if the concept did show some limited success, there are at least five reasons why government funding for these programs should be discontinued. These can be summarized as follows:
1. Privacy issues. The modus operandi of HFA programs necessarily involves an invasion of privacy, a violation of medical record confidentiality and an intrusion into the sanctity of the family.
2. Voluntary and informed consent. PCAA claims that participation in the program is entirely voluntary. However, it seems clear that mothers targeted by the program are not given complete information as to the nature of the program, nor are they given an reasonable opportunity to consider the offer of services before it is accepted. A recovering, postpartum mother is hardly in a condition to thoughtfully consider the implications of allowing an HFA visitor into the home. A mother in financial distress may feel compelled to join the program in order to obtain the many free items that are offered.
3. The nature of the teaching. PCAA’s philosophy of parenting is not shared by all Americans. The government should not be in the position of officially endorsing PCAA’s philosophy of parenting as the one taught to all new parents.
4. The duplicitous role of the home visitor. The home visitor who presents herself as a “helper” is also working in “collaboration” with child welfare authorities to “determine the safety of the home” and make reports to authorities if “abuse or neglect or imminent harm are suspected.” When government sponsored agents are effectively engaging in a “search” of a private home under false pretenses and without probable cause, it is a violation of the Fourth Amendment.
5. Collection and use of client data. There are legitimate concerns whether mothers targeted by the program are fully informed as to how personal data collected on them may be used by HFA programs. It is doubtful that full and informed consent is obtained before this data is transferred to other persons or entities.
Some in government have begun to see the dangers of this type of program. Congressman Henry Hyde recently issued a letter to his Congressional colleagues alerting them to the fact that millions of dollars of federal money are going into these programs. Rep. Hyde described the home visitation concept as “big brother’ intervention as we have never seen it before. It is a case of the ‘village’ mentality run wild. Americans have never experienced such intrusion in their family lives.
To contact Dr.Stan Watson, PhD directly, call 800-642-6797 or alabamaprc@wwisp.com.
This text was adapted from an article which appears in the July 1999 edition of The DeWeese Report, a newsletter published by the American Policy Center, 13873 Park Center Road, Herndon, VA 20171.
March 28, 2003
By Tom DeWeese
The world is in chaos and, quite frankly, it’s the United Nations’ fault. It gives validity to zealots and petty bigots. It helps to keep tyrannical dictators in power. It provides money and aid to international terrorists. And it sets itself up as the international economic and environmental standard to which all nations are to mirror. The truth is, the United Nations is the root of international trouble, not the answer.
Saddam Hussein is in power, able to threaten world peace today because the United States allowed the United Nations to dictate the terms for the finish to the Gulf War after an American-organized coalition all but annihilated Iraq.
In the intervening ten years, Iraq has time and again broken the terms of that treaty. The UN’s response has been to pass 17 resolutions to demand that Iraq behave itself. Those resolutions are toothless and irrelevant because other nations that have economic dealings with Iraq refuse to take action for fear of losing money.
When President Bush went before the UN to make his case against Iraq, he simply was asking the Security Council if it agreed with the U.S. assessment that Iraq “has been and remains in material breach,” of the terms of the Gulf War disarmament provisions.
True to form, the UN was unable to act on so clear of a position. Instead, France, Russia and China, all nations who have Iraqi economic ties to lose in a war, and all members of the Security Council, used their power to delay and deny U.S. action.
As a result, the UN resolution #17 does not allow for U.S. action if a breach is found. Instead it demands that the UN basically issue resolution #18.
Delay. Negotiate. Recommend. Study. Reconsider. Do nothing. This is the same game the UN has played in nearly every international crisis. It is the reason North Korea remains a threat and its violent dictator remains in power after 50 years. It’s the reason why Zimbabwe’s murderous dictator, Robert Mugabe, is able to steal his election and then steal the land of white property owners and still have a voice at the UN’s Sustainable Development Conference a few months ago in South Africa. It’s the reason why the Communist Chinese are able to ignore any UN rules not to their liking while growing as an international military and economic threat. It’s the reason why a terrorist nation like Syria can be given a seat on the UN’s Human Rights Council while the United States is removed.
The United Nations’ main purpose is to provide voice and power to irrelevant or vicious nations to counter the United States. The UN will never approve U.S. military action against Iraq or any tin horn dictators who threaten the peace, because they are the very dictators who now control UN decisions.
It is, however, the United States that is to blame for this situation, because we allow this circus on the East River to exist. The only credibility the UN possesses comes from recognition by the United States. The only financial security the UN enjoys comes from funds provided by U.S. taxpayers. The only military punch controlled by the UN comes from American military might.
The United States is dutifully providing an elegant clubhouse in which pouting and jealous bureaucrats and self-inflated international diplomats can pretend to matter. As long as the United States allows them to exist and as long as this nation goes along with their demands, they do matter. The United Nations is nothing more than a house of cards, but it’s a very dangerous house of cards.
The UN is dangerous because its most vocal membership stands in opposition of the American values of controlled representative government, justice, free enterprise, privacy of individuals and private property rights. Most of the UN’s membership comes from nations controlled either by communist regimes, kingdoms or mad dictators where American values are either unknown or viewed as a threat.
Those same UN members are busy working to implement plans for UN global governance. Already, the UN’s International Criminal Court is in place. The UN has held an international meeting to discuss the possibilities and methods of implementing global taxes. More plans are under consideration to establish a UN global army or police force. Most member states participating in these planning sessions are from brutal dictatorships like China and Cuba and a number of brutal fundamental Islamic states like Syria and Iran. Can any clear thinking American honestly believe that the ideas coming out of this group would have a possibility of favoring ideals readily accepted as rights in the United States?
Many Americans simply do not believe that the United States would voluntarily give up its sovereignty to the United Nations. They say our people would never stand for it. Those who think this way somehow seem to believe the issue will come up for a national vote to determine if the United States will agree to dismantle its federal government in acceptance of UN global governance. If it were that simple, even UN opponents wouldn’t worry about the UN threat. Such a thing will never happen.
It happens in increments of well meaning, innocent-sounding policies and treaties. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was sold as simply a way for American producers to broaden their markets to the international level. Instead, many have found that details of the treaty dictate rules and regulations, particularly of the environmental kind, that tilt the playing field to other nations. As a result, American markets are flooded with foreign goods as American businesses and jobs head out of the country. As a result of NAFTA, the American sheep industry has all but disappeared. Other industries may soon follow as the United States continues to cling to this discredited policy.
The European Union was originally sold as another NAFTA through which nations could join together to compete with the United States on the international market. Now, once-proud nations have given up their national sovereignty, ancient currencies like the Italian Lira and the French Franc have disappeared in place of the Euro. Would the citizens of France, Italy or Greece ever have agreed to such a move had the whole plan been put on a ballot?
Now there is discussion of an African Union, a South American Union and a North American Union in which the United States would meld its borders with Canada and Mexico. The move will be easy since NAFTA has already set the precedent.
How long will it be after the establishment of all of these geographical unions before the world moves towards one international union? It will be easy to complete after all of these nations have been through the process of letting go of their national identity. And the United Nations is already putting the pieces together with its World Court, global tax schemes and military planning.
Imagine a world run by the justice of China, with the economics of Cuba and the military might of the United States. Such is the world of the future under the United Nations. The United States holds all of the cards, but it has only one vote in this cesspool of Socialism.
The United Nations exists simply because there is an established mindset that says it’s supposed to. It is the established mindset of too many Americans who simply view the United Nations through the televised images of the UN’s Security Council, as the President of the United States, hat in hand, asks that body to allow the United States to defend itself against murderers. It is the mindset that they somehow have a legitimacy to grant or deny that request. It is the mind set that Resolution #17 means anything. It is the established mindset of NAFTA, the European Union and the International Criminal Court that are already part of our lives. It is the mindset that accepts the movement toward a North American Union and UN global governance as simply the next natural step. These are the reasons why the United Nations is so dangerous.
The United States can end it all now if it wishes. The mindset must be changed. President Bush has proven that we don’t need the United Nations to grant us permission to protect our national interests. The United States can and will fight its own war on terrorism. It can and will organize its own coalition of allies, use its own money, it’s own weapons and its own troops to defeat an enemy who threatens us.
The United Nations is irrelevant as a body to deliver world peace. But it is United States’ participation in propping up the circus that makes the UN dangerous. Seventeen resolutions should be enough to prove we don’t need to spend another dime playing this game.
As the new 108th Congress opens in January, Congressman Ron Paul will once again introduce H.R. 1146, the American Sovereignty Restoration Act. His bill calls for the United States to withdraw from the United Nations. It also calls for the United Nations to remove its headquarters from our shores. H.R. 1146 would relieve the United States from participating in UNESCO and UN environmental policies that endanger our economy and property rights. It would end U.S. participation in UN peace keeping missions, meaning we would no longer be helping to prop up criminal governments and enemies who seek our demise.
As the UN’s irrelevance becomes clearer to the nation; as it drags its feet, delays and passes yet anther meaningless resolution, the time has never been better to change the national mindset to say, “Get us out of the UN.” The time is now.
By Tom DeWeese
March 20, 2003
Choosing a time when the attention of all Americans is on our conflict with Iraq, the Senate is poised to vote on a bill that would unleash a major attack on private property rights. It would empower environmental groups and government agencies to use taxpayer funds to purchase land.
The bill, S. 476, called the “Faith-based Initiative,” has two insidious sections, 106 and 107, that call for a 25% tax cut on capital gains of land sales, but only if the land is sold to an “environmental group” or a government agency.
This legislation is a classic Trojan horse. No other “faith-based” groups would benefit, but all Americans would suffer the economic losses as more and more land is taken off the tax rolls and all access and use of that land would be restricted. The proposed legislation would create a huge potential for government-funded land grabs.
The legislation is a roadmap to economic disaster. It is a sneak attack by environmentalists to line their pockets and grab more land from private property owners. Only this time they will have access to taxpayers’ dollars to undermine the ability to extract natural energy and mining resources, expand our agricultural base, harvest timber, or use such lands for any form of recreation.
The Nature Conservancy would be the largest beneficiary. It is the richest, most powerful environmental colossus in the nation. It claims more than 700,000 individual members and 405 corporate members operating out of eight regional offices and fifty chapter offices across the nation. The Nature Conservancy has assets of over $2.6 billion, with an annual income of $785 million, and an annual operating budget of over $400 million. The Nature Conservancy has 274 employees who are paid more than $50,000 per year.
The scam is Real Estate. The hook is “conservation through private action.” According to the party line, The Nature Conservancy simply buys land with private money and sets up nature reserves, thereby helping the environment without infringing on anybody. It sounds like a wonderful, charitable idea, if only it were true.
In truth, The Nature Conservancy buys private land from owners (usually at drastically reduced, land-grab prices) who think it will remain in private hands and then sells it to the government! In fact, The Nature Conservancy has sold more than 9 million acres to the government at a nice profit.
The victims are unsuspecting property owners, often elderly. The methods utilized include hiding behind phony corporations; serving as a shill for government agencies; and working behind the scenes with more visible environmental groups to intimidate property owners into selling. The goal is money and power.
The Nature Conservancy frequently uses phony front companies to get land from owners who wouldn’t knowingly sell to an environmental group. It used this tactic to purchase most of the islands off the coast of Virginia, containing 40,000 acres and sixty miles of coastline. In doing so, The Nature Conservancy was able to stop all private development and control the use of the land, damaging the tax base, killing thousands of jobs, and severely curbing the locals from hunting, fishing, camping and joy riding on the islands.
Don’t think the purpose was to preserve these beautiful, pristine islands for nature. The Nature Conservancy did bar others from developing the land, but not itself. Far from it. At a huge profit, the Conservancy developed upscale homes for the rich.
The problem is that The Nature Conservancy is a non-profit organization with tax-exempt status and they maintain that status because of their tightly protected image as benevolent conservationists. This is far from the truth.
For example, property owners on the islands wanted to invest in development and thought they were selling their land to developers. They were aware of and frightened by The Nature Conservancy and would never have sold to the group. That’s why the Conservancy hid behind a phony land company, grabbed power, foiled the development, and made a huge profit on tax-exempt money. Today much of the coast of Virginia is off-limits to tourists and other development.
Other times, The Nature Conservancy acts as a shill to a government agency to acquire land cheaply and sell it to the government at a huge profit. One of its favorite scams goes something like this. Your grandmother owns land close to a historic site or a wilderness area. The government wants the land to expand a park, but grandmother won’t sell.
One day a representative of the Nature Conservancy shows up, well dressed, smiling, but concerned. He tells your grandmother that he’s just learned that the government intends to take her land after she passes away. She won’t be able to sell it or give it to her children. However, he can offer a solution. If Grandmother will sell her land to The Nature Conservancy he can assure her that the land will stay in private hands and not be taken by the government.
Well, a relieved grandmother is much happier and she agrees to sell. However, because the government has threatened to take the land, its value is now only about half its reported market value. That’s all he’ll be able to pay her. Well, thinks grandmother, half is better than nothing, so she sells.
The next day our friend from The Nature Conservancy makes a call to the Department of the Interior (or some other appropriate federal agency) informing them that their plan has worked. The whole thing had been pre-arranged between them before anyone ever knocked on Grandmother’s door. As arranged, The Nature Conservancy then sells the land to the Interior Department for full market value, plus overhead, financing, and handling charges.
The truth is The Nature Conservancy is little more than a massive, ruthless real estate machine using its tax-exempt status and ties to the government to create wealth for itself.
The entire concept of the faith-based initiative is ill conceived. Its virtually hidden exemptions will benefit The Nature Conservancy and land-hungry government agencies. Americans must contact their Senators today to insure that the hidden sections of S.476 are removed. It may come up for a vote at any time.
Read before the Subcommittee on National Parks of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, concerning oversight, designation and management of National Heritage Areas and the impact of National Heritage Areas on private lands and communities.
March 13, 2003
Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today on the behalf of property rights advocates across the country who are concerned with the impact of National Heritage Areas on land use, private property rights and local communities.
One of the biggest fears that both residential and commercial property owners have about Heritage Areas is that they will effectively lead to restrictive federal zoning and land-use planning. Why do they fear this? Because funding and technical assistance for Heritage Areas are currently administered through the National Park Service—an agency that, unfortunately, has become synonymous with lost property rights.
Indeed, section 6.1.6 of the management plan for the National Coal Heritage Area in West Virginia, a management plan that was created with funding and technical assistance provided by the Park Service, states:
“Southern West Virginia counties, like rural areas across the United States, lack land-use controls completely or else have controls that are weak or ineffective. The visual landscape that results is cluttered and frequently unattractive.”
This, of course, is a blatant move towards increased restrictions on development and stringent zoning controls. Furthermore, this language of restricted land-use is not unique to the National Coal Heritage Area. Nearly every Heritage Area has a management plan or statement of purpose that calls for restrictive zoning regulations, under the auspices of more environmental protection, more open space and more historic preservation. This typically results in more infringements upon the property rights of landowners located within the boundaries of Heritage Areas.
Now, proponents of National Heritage Areas have claimed that the Park Service merely provides technical assistance and innocently serves as a conduit by which funds are transferred from the federal government to the citizen planning boards and special interest groups entrusted with crafting the blueprints governing Heritage Areas. However, such an assertion is highly dubious, because if it were true, it may mark the first time in the history of federal grant-making, where the funding agency refused to get intimately involved in the program it was funding. It is just not realistic.
This trend was born out when the Augusta Canal National Heritage Area in Georgia was in its developmental stages in 1994. The National Park Service refused to accept the management plan put forth by Augusta Canal Authority until zoning regulations were made stricter.
Private property rights advocates are also worried that National Heritage Areas will effectively become part of the National Parks program, despite attempts by proponents to assuage these fears. Unfortunately, these fears are well founded.
The Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area, located in southwestern Pennsylvania, states boldly on its website:
“Rivers of Steel is spearheading a drive to create a national park on 38 acres of original mill site…Bills have been introduced before the U.S. Congress to make this urban national park a reality.”
Thus, here is an example of a National Heritage Area, funded and guided by the National Park Service, taking the initiative in lobbying Congress for land acquisition and the creation of yet another National Park. It hardly appears that Heritage Areas and National Parks are strictly dichotomous. It is also worthwhile to note that this is happening at a time when funding for federal land acquisition is becoming more and more scarce.
If the Heritage Areas program is allowed to proliferate, experience shows that it will become not only a funding albatross, as more and more interest groups gather around the federal trough, but also a program that quashes property rights and local economies through restrictive federal zoning practices. The real beneficiaries of a National Heritage Areas program are conservation groups, preservation societies, land trusts and the National Park Service—essentially, organizations that are in constant pursuit of federal dollars, land acquisition and restrictions to development.
Again, Mr. Chairman, thank you for inviting me to testify on this very important issue. I would be happy to answer any questions that you, or other members of the subcommittee, may have.
March 13, 2003
Washington, DC ~ “If the Heritage Areas program is allowed to proliferate, experience shows that it will become not only a funding albatross, as more and more interest groups gather around the federal trough, but also a program that quashes property rights and local economies through restrictive federal zoning practices.”
Testifying today before the Subcommittee on National Parks of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Peyton Knight, Legislative Director of the American Policy Center, warned against any expansion of Heritage Areas programs administered by the National Parks Service.
“The real beneficiaries of a National Heritage Areas program are conservation groups, preservation societies, land trusts and the National park Service,” said Mr. Knight, “essentially organizations that are in a constant pursuit of federal dollars, land acquisition, and restrictions to development.”
Mr. Knight cited the National Coal Heritage Area as an example of comparable programs that would impose restrictive zoning regulations that have the effect of ending any further economic development, killing jobs, and forcing homeowners in the designated areas to sell against their wishes.
The National Park Service is not merely a neutral party to the creation of such Heritage Areas, but plays an active role “as a conduit by which funds are transferred from the federal government to the citizen planning boards and special interest groups entrusted with crafting the blueprints governing Heritage Areas.”
The National Park Service, Mr. Knight testified, “has become synonymous with lost property rights.” In an article on the subject, Mr. Knight warned, “Heritage Areas are not simply honorary designations. They are vehicles for ‘sustainable development’, an environmental term that hides an agenda to remove and restrict as much of the U.S. landmass as possible from any use. The program “shuns property rights in favor of radical environmentalism.”
“Supporters of the Heritage Areas Act,” Mr. Knight wrote, “are desperately trying to impress upon an increasingly gullible public that Heritage Areas are conducive to economic development. That this can be said with a straight face is nothing short of incredible. The enactment of zoning restrictions is hardly a recipe for economic growth. In fact, stifling development usually spells misery for local economies, and in these uncertain times, the last thing communities need are federally-induced barriers to economic growth.
