American Policy Center » 2006 » February

Paul McCartney: a Victim of His Own Gibberish

February 24, 2006

By Tom DeWeese

I love the Beatles’ music. My respect for individual members of the legendary band end there. Paul McCartney has spent a lifetime making incredible music while uttering pure gibberish on issues that matter. It seems that if he can’t put a rhyme and a tune to it, his brain turns to mush.

He has been a major promoter of the animal rights scam perpetrated by PeTA. And he has operated a sheep farm with a “commitment to natural methods, and the farm and produce have gained recognition and designation as organic status,” according to a McCartney spokesman. In other words, Paul McCartney has spent years accepting and promoting the environmental agenda that is based more on political propaganda than scientific fact. Sir Paul has done his best to toe an impossible, anti-human line. Worse, he has used his celebrity status to push that misguided agenda on the rest of us.

But Paul is only human. He has needs and wants. And he has the money to get them. Or so he thought. It seems Sir Paul is the victim of Sustainable Development and its strict land use policies that allow a power elite to dictate what we do with our own private property.

Paul’s farm is an extensive estate with lots of land just 70 miles outside London. But when he built a simple one and a half story log cabin on the property to serve as a quiet retreat, away from the hustle and bustle of the farm, he was foiled. It seems the local community planning committee doesn’t like the cabin. They say it “harms the intrinsic landscape quality and character of the area.” Says Councilman Grey Metcalf, “Planning laws are there for a reason. If there was a free-for-all, people would build where they liked, whenever they liked.” The council says Paul ruined an area of outstanding natural beauty.

The fact is, Paul’s cabin doesn’t harm anything. It’s just that his neighbors want to control what he does on his property because they consider the view over his fields to be their own “view shed” and they don’t want him building something in the way to spoil their vistas and sunsets. Protecting the environment is just a euphemism for stealing property.

Paul’s problem is that he never argued before the Council that the land was his and that he should have a perfect right to build a little cabin if he wants to. Instead he argues his need, saying he has a need to privacy, seclusion and security due to the proximity of a public foot path running next to his farm house. Of course the foot path was already enforced over private land as part of the open space rules. Paul then goes on to plead what a great environmentalist he is. In essence, Paul pleaded that “I’m one of you, how can you do this to me?” The Council countered saying the cabin isn’t essential to the running of the farm, so he doesn’t really need it. Paul then learned that the pigs he had helped put in charge, through his support of the dictatorship called Sustainable Development, are now more equal than he is. It’s the new order of things that Sir Paul thought he wanted.

Of course, it can be argued that Paul has received what he deserves because he’s so eager to inflict the same idiocy on the rest of us. But gloating over Paul doesn’t restore our property rights. Will he ever understand that his actions and political gibberish have consequences? Perhaps Paul could now be encouraged to rewrite George Harrison’s song, “Tax man” and replace those words with “Land Man.”

Controlling the Last Free Voice in the World

February 17, 2006

By Tom DeWeese

The American people simply have no idea what it’s like to live in a totalitarian society. We go where we want; watch movies and television shows or any kind; start new businesses on a whim; shop in huge supermarkets that carry any item imaginable; even sit in public places and say anything we want about political leaders.

Today in our modern society, many of us sit at our computer for hours on end sending e-mails, corresponding, web surfing, researching, subscribing to web sites, gaining information, booking hotels and airline reservations, buying gifts, even creating personal web sites – or blogs – where any average citizen can vent on the political issues of the day and send it to the world. Frankly, there is simply no end to what we Americans can do sitting in our own homes behind our trusty computer. The Internet is fast becoming the most valued root of our free society.

To better understand the vast scope of such American freedom, contrast it with a recent new story out of Beijing, China. The Associated Press (AP) report details how the Communist government has forced Microsoft Corporation to shut down the Internet journal of a Chinese blogger who discussed “politically sensitive” issues, including a recent strike at a Beijing newspaper.

The AP report says, “Although Beijing has supported Internet use for education and business, it fiercely polices content. Filters block objectionable foreign Web sites, and regulations ban perceived subversive or pornographic content and require service providers to enforce censorship rules.” In its defense, poor Microsoft admits to being a pawn to whatever gang of thugs is in charge. “When we operate in markets around the world, we have to ensure that our service complies with global laws as well as local laws and norms,” said Brooke Richardson, Microsoft spokeswoman.”

Of course the “local norm” in Communist China is to ban anything that criticizes the brutal totalitarian government. The communists call literature like the Declaration of Independence “pornographic.” The fact that Microsoft caved so quickly on this obvious censorship, for fear of losing the Chinese market speaks volumes about corporate globalism which pledges no allegiance to any country or idea other than profit for profit’s sake.

Imagine what would have happened had the Bush Administration even remotely suggested any form of censorship of the Internet. Microsoft would have had their well-paid lawyers, lobbyists and public relations people on a full frontal assault against the very idea. They would have done it because they don’t fear the U.S. government and so they can. Not so in Communist China.

But imagine what could have been accomplished in Communist China had Microsoft worried less about losing a market and more about gaining some freedom for an oppressed people. Imagine if Microsoft had reacted to the Communist order by refusing, instead shutting down its operation in China and using its formidable press operation to tell why. China would have blinked and quite possibly relented.

Why is the China story so important? To fully understand, switch to another recent news story. That story is the unrelenting control of the Internet by the United Nations. Things got serious in the UN’s bid last November at an international confab held in Tunis.

Focus of the meeting was a desire by several UN member nations to wrestle control of the Internet from the U.S.- based International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a quasi-governmental non-profit organization that oversees the day-to-day operation of the Internet. ICANN doesn’t control who uses the Internet and it doesn’t censor content. It’s a free market and ICANN’s mission is to preserve it as such. To make it even better, though today ICANN operates under an agreement with the U.S. Department of Commerce, in November, it will actually become a fully private corporation, breaking all of its governmental ties.

The UN argues that the Internet is international in scope and needs much grander over site. Who better to handle the chore, of course than the body that fancies itself an international government? The Internet is fast becoming the biggest international prize as the greatest source of information and human involvement. It offers the UN huge opportunity for creating tax revenues and controlling commerce. It is also the place to control the flow of ideas. What totalitarian can resist a bid to control the Internet?

The assault on ICANN was fierce at the Tunis meeting, but the Bush Administration thought it was able to argue its way out — for the time being keeping ICANN in control. However, the Administration made a fatal error when it agreed to let the UN create a permanent standing body called the “Internet Governance Forum” (IGF), which intends to keep up a long-term campaign to finally achieve UN control over the Internet.

And what will happen to the free Internet once the UN takes control. Go back to the top of this story and simply replace the words “Communist China” with “the UN.” What corporation will then oppose such censorship? And what censorship can we expect? Here’s a good example: Hate talk. We’ve all heard discussions about it. Most shake our heads in agreement that it just shouldn’t be allowed. Even pro-family groups argue that there should be some law, some control over it.

Using the Unaware to Promote a Vile Political Agenda

February 16, 2006

By Kathleen Marquardt

PeTA gave Pat Buchanan an award ostensibly because he saved the life of a turtle. In actuality, they are using him and his compassion for animals to promote their sick and twisted agenda.

Publicly, animal rights leaders disguise their agenda, distracting misguided animal lovers from their true goals. Would Pat Buchanan be proud of receiving an award from PeTA if he knew their true goals? One has to know what PeTA and the Animal Rights are in order to understand how they are using Mr. Buchanan for their political gain.

First, how do animal rightists feel about animals, human and nonhuman? Peter Singer, the “father” of the animal rights movement, wrote in the preface of his book, “Animal Liberation” (the bible of the movement), “We (he and his wife) 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.” He also said, “Torturing a human being is almost always wrong, but it is not absolutely wrong.”

Their crusade is one of a fight for rights for animals. But if you stop and think about affording rights to animals, the concept is ludicrous. “Rights” is a concept, and man is the only species on earth with the intellect to grasp concepts. The most important concepts people think about concern morality and ethics, questions of “right and wrong.” Man’s unique ability to ask ethical questions and make moral choices (rather than be ruled by instinct) makes us moral agents.

Rights are the boundaries between moral agents. In order to possess rights, we must accept responsibilities to respect others’ rights. We are justified in demanding our rights so long as we do not violate the rights of another moral agent.

Because animals act instinctively, they cannot even conceive of responsibilities. When a cat kills a canary, you and I may be upset, but we also understand that the nature of cats is to kill birds. We recognize that the cat has committed no moral violation. The same is true even when a lion or a chimpanzee kills another member of its own species. We understand that nature has endowed animals with certain features that sometimes seem cruel. But, quite properly, we do not judge animals on a moral scale.

On the other hand, a person who torments a cat to death the way a cat might torment a mouse deserves our moral condemnation – not because cats have rights, but because people has responsibilities. Likewise, we insist it is wrong for people to burn books, deface a masterpiece, or desecrate a church – not because these things have rights, but because people have responsibilities.

Rights are a serious business. They are the linchpin of a free society. Without them, people would not be able to go about their business free from arbitrary interference by government. Rights offer a people freedom to convince others of different points of view without having to resort to violence and the resulting breakdown of civilization.

The animal rights movement would allow people no more rights than rats or cockroaches. The real agenda of this movement is not to give rights to animals but to take rights from people – to dictate our food, clothing, work, recreation, and whether we will discover new medications or die.

Even if the use of animals in biomedical research were to produce a cure for AIDS, says PeTA’s Ingrid Newkirk, “we’d be against it.” The reason? Mankind has “grown like a cancer. We’re the biggest problem on the face of the Earth.” But most disturbing of all was her quote “Six million people died in concentration camps, but six billion broiler chickens will die this year in slaughterhouses.”

The inevitable consequences of her ideology were revealed by Hermann Goering, who was head of the German Humane Society and Environmental Minister for the Third Reich. In a radio broadcast he announced “an absolute and permanent ban on vivisection.” For violation of his ban, he said, any “culprit shall be lodged in a concentration camp.”

By pretending to extend rights to animals, which by nature are incapable of moral cognition, the Nazis ultimately annihilated the very concept of “rights.” And just as the dogma of animal rights led to the destruction of human rights under Nazism, it leads to the destruction of human rights today.

So if animals cannot even conceive of rights or responsibilities, and the animal rights movement and PeTA realize this, then what is their goal?

I think the warped motivation behind this warped ideology is best expressed by Newkirk herself: “I am not a morose person, but I would rather not be here. I don’t have any reverence for life, only for the entities themselves. I would rather see a blank space where I am. This will sound like fruitcake stuff again but at least I wouldn’t be harming anything.”

If you don’t have the answer yet to what animal rightists want, how about this quote from Michael W. Fox of the Humane Society, “Man is the most dangerous, destructive, selfish, and unethical animal on earth.” Enough? Do you get their anti-human message? Or do you need one more quote from Wild Earth, “If you haven’t given voluntary human extinction much thought before, the idea of a world with no people in it may seem strange. But, if you give it a chance, I think you might agree that the extinction of Homo sapiens would mean survival for millions, if not billions, of Earth-dwelling species. . . Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on earth, social and environmental.”

Yes, they are using a fight for rights for animals to attack the human race. Can anyone in their right mind believe in this?

Pat Buchanan has always stood for the right of the individual. His voice is strong and powerful for the forces of freedom. For PeTA to usurp it for its own warped agenda is a tragedy for reason and a victory for the dark side.

Kathleen Marquardt is the Vice President of the American Policy Center, founder of Putting People First and author of the best selling book, “Animal Scam, The Beastly Abuse of Human Rights.

A Bad Law Must Be Repealed

February 13, 2006

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Congress is going through the process of trying to fix the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Why do they think it needs fixing? Because, quite simply, the ESA is the worst law ever to be enacted by Congress.

For thirty two years the ESA has taken control of private land out of the hands of the owners in the name of protecting endangered species. Yet, the ESA is actually responsible for the destruction of whole industries and the towns they supported, as lumber mills are shut down for lack of cut trees. Farmers and ranchers have lost vital grazing land. Urgently needed minerals are left in the ground and imported from foreign countries because the ESA blocks mining efforts.

The ESA has become a very powerful tool, used by radical environmentalists who want to stop literally any use of certain lands for any purpose. They have made up endangered species like the Spotted Owl, which actually flourishes throughout the Northwestern part of the nation. Environmentalists have used the ESA to block the building of hospitals and airports, always claiming to find an obscure sand flea or snail darter buried somewhere in the sand. Los Angeles International Airport urgently needs to build new runways, but environmentalists claim the108 acre plot of land is home to the Riverdale fairy shrimp that sometimes live in swampy areas. The entire community of Klamath Falls, Oregon has been literally choked to death as its water supply was shut off to protect a sucker fish that isn’t endangered. The law suits begin. The costs go up. The projects die. Jobs are lost. It happens time after time.

The ESA is also used by industry to hurt its competition. The Surdna Foundation, which was created with money from the timber fortune of the John E. Andrus estate, makes grants in the millions of dollars to a wide array of environmental groups whose sole purpose is to enforce the Endangered Species Act. In one case, documents show that Surdna made grants in excess of one million dollars in “an emergency action to protect forests and save the environment.” As a result of those grants and the actions they paid for, thirty six lumber mills were closed in Northern California, 8,000 loggers lost their jobs, and the price of lumber, now in severe shortage, rose dramatically. Who gained? Surdna, which owns its own timber operation that was left unharassed by environmental legal action. Surdna earned a profit of $2.7 million from the otherwise devastated timber industry.

Yet, all of this pain and suffering is for absolutely nothing, as far as endangered species are concerned. Incredible as it may sound to the average American, in the 32 years since the ESA has been on the books, just 34 of the nearly 1,300 U.S. species listed have made their way off the endangered list. Of this number, 9 species are now extinct, 14 appear to have been improperly listed in the first place, and just 9, (.6% of all species listed) have recovered sufficiently to be delisted. A less than 1% recovery rate proves the ESA does nothing to protect endangered species – it just makes special interest groups and the government more powerful.

No law should have this kind of power over a free American people. To believe that Congress has any shot at fixing such a bad law is to also believe in the Easter Bunny. It’s not going to happen. The fix may, in fact, be worse than the original as the radical environmental groups see an opportunity to actually strengthen the law.

Current efforts to fix the ESA are now before Congress. The House has already passed the “Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act (TESRA, HR 3824), sponsored by House Resource Committee Chairman Richard Pombo (R-CA). Supporters of the ESA were outraged by TESRA’s efforts to at least provide some compensation to besieged property owners. Consequently, driven by the insistence of the environmental movement, much of the pro-property language has been gutted or watered down. The Senate now has several versions of its own, all worse than the House version. The fact is, the ESA is the holy grail of the environmental movement. It will not allow even a single comma to be changed without all out war.

There is only one valid answer to this outrageous situation. Repeal the ESA and, if necessary, start over. Such a repeal effort has begun. A coalition of national property rights groups led by the American Land Foundation, Stewards of the Range and the American Policy Center are currently circulating a letter to the Senate calling for repeal of the ESA. A key section of the letter states: “Congress needs to revisit the wisdom of the Founding Fathers who believed the ownership of property must be secured from government intervention for liberty to exist. Take that security away through environmental laws like the ESA, and not only is liberty not secure, it no longer exists. You only have to look at the past 30 years since the enactment of the ESA to see what it has produced – the dramatic destruction of property rights and the failure to recover species.”

Action to Take:

Sign the letter to Congress calling for Repeal of the ESA

The coalition already has gained several thousand signatures of property rights activists and property owners. The full letter can be found at www.stewards.us and can be signed on line. More signatures are urgently needed before it is presented to Senate leadership.

As the debate grows and the legislative process gets underway in the Senate, the letter can be key to sending a warning to the Senate that not all Americans are blindly supporting the Endangered Species Act. Americans should not have to suffer under such bad law simply because of a radical political agenda perpetrated by a few powerful special interest groups. Says Margaret Byfield, executive director of Stewards of the Range, “Landowners are tired of losing their land and livelihoods while Congress discusses ways to slow the bleeding.”

In this day, when Americans have come to understand the horrors of widespread government abuse of eminent domain, such as in the Supreme Court’s Kelo decision, we should rightly fear the creation of a new ESA that could best be called Kelo 2.

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A bad law must be repealed

Action to Take:

Sign the letter to Congress calling for Repeal of the ESA

PLEASE PASS THIS ALERT ON TO AT LEAST FIVE MORE PEOPLE!

A bad law must be repealed

Action to Take:

Sign the letter to Congress calling for Repeal of the ESA

PLEASE PASS THIS ALERT ON TO AT LEAST FIVE MORE PEOPLE!

APC is now offering you a quick and easy way to multiply your efforts and help win more battles! Simply click to send this APC Action Alert to up to TEN of your friends. It’s fast, it’s easy, and most of all, it’s extremely effective in Killing Bad Policy!

A Corporation Does the Right Thing …For the Right Reasons

February 9, 2006

By Tom DeWeese

Government is to be feared because it has the power to enforce its will on its citizens. It has guns. It has jails. It has money. The average citizen lacks all of these, making it difficult to fight back. The ballot box and the court of public opinion are about our only weapons. Yet, government has grown so large, so distant from the voters, that it frankly fears little from either.

So what is left for the defense of our rights and our property? A principled leader is a grand ideal. Such a leader in a position of influence who actually believes in right and wrong rarely happens. When it does, there is no more powerful force on earth.

The free market, given a chance, is a potent force; a place where consumers control policy and products with their dollars. No need for government intervention. Bad products or policies fail; good ones flourish. Yet, a principled leader in the free market has become almost unheard of in our modern world where government seems to be the answer to almost every question.

When was the last time your heard a corporate executive talk about his company’s policies from a philosophical position? When did you last hear one talk about individual rights? And when was the last time your heard of a corporation announcing that it would turn down business because a policy was “just plain wrong?” Miracles do happen.

And so it is true with a bank called BB&T. BB&T Corporation based in North Carolina, and the second largest bank in the Washington D.C. area, announced that it will not lend money to developers who plan to build commercial projects on land taken through the power of eminent domain.

The Supreme Court shocked the nation last Fall by issuing a ruling that upheld local government’s right to use eminent domain powers to evict homeowners and demolish their houses for community development. The practice, necessary to implement the ugly policy of Sustainable Development, has created an unholy alliance between local officials and wealthy, politically-connected developers. Now they are free to build projects that promise to pad the pockets of politicians and government coffers, while enriching the developers. The property owners be damned.

The decision opened the way for local officials to move at full speed on projects in communities across the nation. The National Conference of Mayors has led opposition to legislation in Congress that would halt federal dollars to fund such projects, arguing that the legislation would diminish government power to control community development.

And there is danger in just trusting government to solve the eminent domain land grabs with legislation. Many times the special interests and their shark-trained lawyers know exactly what words to remove from legislation to render it worthless. Yet the politicians take the gutted legislation and tout it as landmark property rights protection. It happens all the time. It recently happened in Alabama to legislation particularly aimed at correcting the horrible wrong of the Supreme Court decision in the Kelo case.

As property owners are brushed aside, helplessly watching their homes being bulldozed to the ground, BB&T takes a refreshingly different view of the scene. Rather than progress, the bank sees their customers being crushed under the power of an out of control government which is ignoring the voters who put them in their positions of public trust. Said BB&T CEO, John Allison, “The idea that a citizen’s property can be taken by the government solely for private use is extremely misguided; in fact, it’s just plain wrong.” The bank felt “obligated” to take a stand by refusing to lend money to any developer who acquired his land through the use of eminent domain.

By standing for principle and doing what is right, BB& T has a chance to influence others in the banking industry to follow suit. And that is a force of power government fears most. It’s proof that the free market, when left alone, works.

Money drives everything. Cut it off and even the most powerful forces dry up and blow away. Money is the reason why property owners fear the government land grabbers. It’s the message behind the old saying, “You can’t fight city hall.” Why? Because you don’t have the money to fight it. Government can pass a law and the average American is helpless to fight back. But even government needs the money to enforce its schemes.

BB&T just started a small snowball rolling down the hill that could liberate millions from the threat of losing their homes to eminent domain. As the nation is ravaged by Sustainable Development and its eminent domain ponzi scheme, BB&T’s answer is so simple. Just don’t do it. Serve your customers. It’s the perfect free market solution. Property rights advocates everywhere need to converge on their own local banks to spread the word of the BB&T revolution. Give praise for those who follow, and picket lines for those who don’t.

Update: Montgomery Bank, which has six branches in St. Louis and five branches in Southeast Missouri, announced late last week that “it will not lend money for projects in which local governments use eminent domain to take private property for use by private developments.”

Meanwhile, patriots should pause in their embattled trenches just long enough to open their arms to welcome BB&T, and now Montgomery Bank, as the new recruits in the camp of Freedom’s Heroes.

A Bad Law Must Be Repealed

February 6, 2006

By Tom Deweese