What’s Up with The Right Slant

By Anthony W. Hager

Email: tony_hager@therightslant.com

Web: www.therightslant.com  /  Blog: http://anthonywhager.blogspot.com/

If discussing politics and religion should be avoided at all costs, then science must join the list. Much of today’s “settled science” or “scientific consensus” is actually religion in its purest sense. The scientific faithful are proselytizing, pronouncing woe to anyone who questions their doctrine.

Too many scientists are High Priests in the First Assembled Reformation Church of Environmentalism, or FARCE for short. They and their followers defend their god–the environment–with the same zeal that  Muslims defend Mohammad.

Actually, to grant FARCE church status is a bit kind; it is a cult. Non-believers can have rational discussions with Christians, Jews, Mormons, etc. The same holds for most Muslims, too. Avoid the Al-Qaeda/Hezbollah sect and you’ll be fine. But you can’t have a sensible debate with a cult follower. Fact, history, precedent, logic, common sense; none of it matters to the cultist. Therefore, it doesn’t matter to the FARCE member.

If you question a FARCE tenet, even to the slightest degree, you’re a heretic. Publicly denounce FARCE’s core belief–that mankind drives cataclysmic climate change–and you’re a global warming denier. Blind obedience, without the slightest hint of individual thought or reason, is required.

For example, the FARCE has declared that flat screen televisions are an environmental hazard. If you have one you’re destroying the planet. Use a light bulb that hasn’t been blessed by a FARCE priest and you’re chief among sinners. And you don’t want to contemplate your eternal destination if you drive an automobile that’s not on the FARCE list of doctrinally acceptable vehicles.

A quality common to cults is the demand for absolute compliance. Within faiths and religions you’ll find divergent opinions. These become denominations. Denominations will hold to basic principles even while disagreeing about specific doctrines. Not so with cults.

Environmentalists allow no disagreement. The “green” activist will ignore any evidence or argument that contradicts their belief system. Dissent is intolerable, even sacrilege, and ignored as if it never existed. And no, I’m not exaggerating. Let’s look at the evidence.

At the 2008 UN global warming conference in Poland over 650 scientists questioned the accuracy of man-made global warming science. The Petition Project–instituted by Frederick Seitz, past president of the National Academy of Sciences–has collected over 30,000 signatures from qualified professionals questioning man’s impact on climate.

The FARCE will not tolerate such heretics. Apostate scientists have their character assassinated, their voice silenced and their scientific credentials dismissed out of hand. In short, they’re excommunicated from the FARCE, which is the climate change community.

A little common sense will land you in hot water, too.

In California, regulators have proposed banning wood burning stoves and fireplaces. Wood smoke and soot, apparently, are health hazards and environmental contaminants. But unless I’m mistaken, wildfires burn California to the ground every other year and man has burned wood for about 1.5 million years. Let’s take the matter of fire a little farther. The Indians—whom the FARCE considers to have been at one with the earth—burned wood.

You’ll waste your time confronting a FARCE disciple with this argument.  The “green” apostle will simply charge you with wanting to destroy the earth. End of discussion. They’ll never explain where you will live if you succeed in destroying the earth. Doesn’t matter. Their doctrine is unquestionable.

Other topics are verboten within the FARCE, too. Scientists have skewed global warming data and conspired to conceal the process. The IPCC’s report on the disappearing Himalayan glaciers is decidedly flawed. Temperature monitoring data is manipulated to indicate warming trends. So what? Facts are lies within the FARCE.

Nothing is valid that doesn’t fit the environmental creed. Only the canon is real. Global warming exists, earth is doomed and heretics will be sacrificed on the nearest FARCE altar. Sound like a witch hunt? Cotton Mather couldn’t do it so well.

What’s Up with The Right Slant

By Anthony W. Hager

You’d be hard pressed to find anyone passing the hat for “Big Finance” these days. But why do people assume that financial institutions are inherently evil while government is inherently good?

The mortgage bubble and resulting financial problems weren’t a free market problem. They resulted from government manipulation. Yet in many minds government is seen as the savior while banks are the drunks at the Baptist picnic. For that reason alone Rep. Peter Welch’s Wall Street Bonus Tax Act will garner some degree of support.

Welch’s bill (H.R. 4426) promises a 50-percent tax on excessive bonuses paid at banking institutions that received bailout money. It’s a classic leftwing tactic. Welch plays the class envy card, reminding financiers that they owe their reemergence to “hardworking Americans.” However, I would remind Mr. Welch that most “hardworking Americans” opposed TARP–the plan that provided the funding–from the outset. Yet Congress passed it anyway.

Hundreds of institutions became beneficiaries. Some have repaid the money; some haven’t. But banks had to practically beg the Treasury Department for permission to repay their TARP debt. And political connections played a role in the distribution of TARP funds from the start.

A University of Michigan study claims that banks in congressional districts where the representative sits on the finance committee were 26-percent more likely to get bailout funds. That figure is even higher if a bank’s executive is on a Federal Reserve Bank board.

Such backdoor shenanigans in Congress are nothing new. Representatives exchange favors with the well-connected every day. Therefore, how can anyone believe that in taxing bonuses Rep. Welch has any interest at heart other than his own?

I’ll win no popularity contest if I’m perceived as defending banks and their bonus packages. However, my goal isn’t to exonerate or condemn banks. I’m here to defend the free market process. There is a better method than congressional meddling for determining which financial executives deserve bonuses. There’s also much to fear when Congress uses the tax code to control compensation.

First, Rep. Welch only wants to tax “excessive” bonuses. Who is he, or the federal government as a whole, to decide what is and isn’t excessive? Basically, “excessive” means beyond a necessary or proper limit, which is an arbitrary concept at best.

What may seem excessive in one circumstance can be quite routine in another. Once Congress seizes the right to determine appropriate compensation for bank executives it has established precedent to set “proper limits” on salaries for anyone. Who will be next? Barbers? Truck drivers? Play-by-play announcers? Should healthcare reform include wage controls in the medical field? Don’t bet the farm that it won’t.

Such authority in the hands of government isn’t just dangerous to our liberty, it is fatal.

Does that mean I favor bonuses for bank execs? That depends. As stated, there is a better way to set wages. I prefer to see the free market, not pandering politicians who are seeking reelection, determine compensation.

If you’re unhappy with the bonuses paid at your bank you can do business elsewhere. If you stay, then bonuses must not bother you that much. In addition, government bean-counters shouldn’t force, cajole, or lure banks into nonsensical lending practices. Banks should operate on sound financial principles, not politically correct notions about social justice.

Good practice and due diligence are rewarded in the free market. Wise and prudent banks will prosper while depositors and investors will flee foolish institutions in droves. Government manipulation serves only to protect the irresponsible, defer risk and send the entire system tumbling like a house of cards.

Government’s market interventions have proven destructive. Allowing government an inroad to wage controls promises a similar, or worse, result. If Congress can punish banking executives for their compensation the door is wide open to do likewise to everyone.

Want More Of The Right Slant?

Email: tony_hager@therightslant.com

Web: www.therightslant.com

Blog: http://anthonywhager.blogspot.com/

Never afraid to be RIGHT!

Anthony W. Hager of Alexis, NC

Web: www.therightslant.com

Blog: http://anthonywhager.blogspot.com/

Whatever happened to teaching, learning and practicing the “Three R’s?” In schoolhouse terms the “Three R’s” were “reading, `riting” and `rithmetic.” Of course, that’s somewhat of a misnomer. Everyone knows that only one of the “Three R’s” actually begins with “R.”

I raise this point so the English teachers of my distant past won’t consider their efforts wasted or their work futile. That said, and as mislabeled as the classic version of the “Three R’s” may be, there exists “Three R’s” that are spelled correctly. They are essential to a capitalist, free market economy and a liberty-oriented society.

These “Three R’s” have become increasingly unpopular over the last 70 years and are now belittled or ignored outright. Yet without these basic, core principles there can be no liberty and prosperity will be determined through government decree, not according to an individual’s contribution to society. These “Three R’s” are risk, reward and responsibility.

There’s an old saying, “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” Perhaps that’s not the technical definition of risk, but it’s a good start. Risk means to place what one has in jeopardy in order to realize greater satisfaction later on. America was built on risk takers large and small.

Our earliest settlers placed their very lives at risk to achieve a higher level of personal and religious freedom. The Founding Fathers risked their lives and fortunes to pursue independence. Pioneers braved disease, weather extremes, hostile Indian tribes and a host of other perils to seek new fortunes on the Western frontier.

Investors risk their time, monies and reputations in pursuit of invention and innovation. Risk is as intertwined with the American experience as automobiles, baseball and apple pie.

Risk naturally brings reward. The greater the risk the greater the potential reward may be, which manifests either positive or negative. Obviously, a positive reward is the desired result of risk. No one takes a chance without the possibility of reaching their desired outcome. But positive results aren’t guaranteed.

The negative reward can also be a valuable experience. Thomas Edison once said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Edison took risks and his rewards in failure were many. But his rewards in success shaped our world.

Whatever the outcome, good or bad, there’s no reward without risk and no risk without reward.

The third “R” is responsibility; the most important of the three. Risk cannot be taken unless the responsibility for the reward is accepted personally. A free person cannot demand the responsibility for their risk be placed upon their neighbor. Such an attitude is a grave injustice, yet it has become the norm in modern America.

Quasi-capitalists love the positive rewards that their risks generate. But how do such “capitalists” fare in accepting responsibility when the reward for their risk is negative? Trillions of dollars

What’s Up with The Right Slant

By Anthony W. Hager

Alexis, NC 28006

Email: tony_hager@therightslant.com

www.therightslant.com

Blog: http://anthonywhager.blogspot.com

Children can benefit from emulating the positive qualities found not only in their parents but in public role models. I had such boyhood heroes, too, one for each season.

During the winter months I idolized Tarheel point guard Phil Ford. Yes, I’m telling my age. But growing older beats the grave, so here goes.

Ford was the consummate floor general and a ball handler extraordinaire. I can still see him splitting the zone and dishing a quick backdoor pass to a cutting Walter Davis. I so wanted to be Phil Ford . . . until spring.

Beginning in April and throughout the summer months I wanted to be Yankees catcher Thurman Munson. Not only did Munson play for my favorite team, he was also the captain. He helped resurrect the Yankee mystique, which had been dormant during my childhood.

Munson led the Yankees to three American League pennants and two World Series championships. His name sounded cool and his moustache is the reason mine has been shaved only twice in 30 years.

When the summer surrendered to autumn baseball gave way to football. My hero worship turned to Oakland Raiders quarterback Ken Stabler. I thought “Snake” was as cool as they come. He had a scruffy beard and hair that curled from beneath a sinister silver helmet.

On the field Stabler was unflappable and appeared unconcerned with his surroundings. A blitzing linebacker? Hah! He’d stand defiantly in his face. A charging tackle? He never appeared to notice they were there. At the last possible instant Snake’s left hand would strike, delivering a perfectly placed pass to Fred Biletnikoff.

He would get hammered for his nonchalance. If the hits fazed Snake he never let on. In fact, He seemed to thrive on the punishment and the defender’s exasperation.

Those three athletes were at the top of their respective games and they provided me with memories that remain fresh even today. But they’re no longer my heroes.

Ford has battled some personal issues and I just don’t like basketball like I once did. Stabler was just too much of a partier. What else can you say about a guy who John Madden kept in line by making him responsible for keeping John Matuszak in line?

And Thurman Munson, God rest his soul. It’s not easy for a 14-year-old to learn that his favorite ballplayer has died in a plane crash. Thirty years have passed and it seems like yesterday.

It’s also plain that–at age 44–I’ll never be the athlete those men were or that millions of young boys dream of becoming. But I had another childhood hero, and I still look up to him. That hero is Uncle Jed.

Yes, that Uncle Jed; Jed Clampett. I know he was a fictional character, and my reasons for admiring him have changed over the years. For example, I know I can’t shoot flies on the wing or skeet with a rifle. It’s unimportant that Jed was a multi-millionaire, and I certainly don’t admire Jed because he “moved to Beverly.” Jed Clampett is my hero because of the type of character he was.

Despite his good fortune–somehow a man who could shoot flies missed a gopher–Jed never changed. Glitz, glamour and status didn’t interest Uncle Jed. He wasn’t afraid to be himself.

He wasn’t an educated man, but he possessed common sense, logic and wisdom that far-exceeded his wealth. He was honest, capable and dependable. Those virtues are in short supply these days.

Jed was the epitome of self-reliance and charitable to a fault. He sought peace whenever possible–no easy task with Granny for a mother-in-law–but never shied from a necessary confrontation.

Living up to Jed Clampett’s example is a tall order. However, it’s worthy of a man’s best effort. In fact, our world would benefit if more people wanted to be like Uncle Jed.