I was told yesterday that we should “give peace a chance,” and that the sanctions against Iran are working. We just need to give it time. I asked the person who told me that what makes them so certain the sanctions are working, even as Iran continues to amass and enrich uranium and conduct missile tests? I asked what are the criteria for success? I did not get an answer. Ahmadinejad is openly laughing at the U.N. In a televised interview four months ago, he said “If they want to continue with that path of sanctions, we will not be harmed. They can issue resolutions for 100 years.”

While we are “giving peace a chance,” Ahmadinejad is building a nuclear arsenal.

Another person told me today that, if we were to take military action against Iran, the world would condemn us because they already think we’re a bully. Apparently, some people believe we need to wait for Iran to make the first strike, so the world will “approve” when we retaliate. How many American and/or Israeli lives are we willing to sacrifice to world opinion?

It’s frustrating to know what your enemy is up to (because he has brazenly told you), but be unable to do anything about it because you don’t want to look bad to somebody else, while your enemy gloats because he knows your hands are tied by public opinion.

Within the past three months, Iran has been installing 6000 new super high efficiency centrifuges for enriching uranium, that work five times faster than the old centrifuges. Some people are willing to believe Ahmadinejad when he says he’s going to use all that enriched uranium for nuclear energy just to produce electricity, but are unwilling to believe him when he declares the time is very near when America (the Great Satan) will be destroyed and Israel will be wiped off the map.

I’m not suggesting we should jump into a war with Iran tomorrow. But I have a great deal of concern over the confluence of:

• Their recent dramatic increase in uranium enrichment capabilities.
• Their mounting increase in apocalyptic rhetoric against both the U.S. and Israel.
• Their recent saber rattling exercises, indicating that they feel invincible.

All of this concerns me a great deal. It also concerns me that so many people seem determined to ignore these facts, or refuse to consider their potential underlying significance. Any one, by itself, might be dismissible but, taken together, there appears to be a certain momentum building.

I acknowledge that we’re too overextended militarily right now to be able to effectively engage in direct military action against Iran. I see that as a huge problem, as Iran shores up it’s military might in obvious preparation for a conflict we are not prepared to undertake. I also grasp the urgency to take some kind of action to thwart their build-up of nuclear capability before it gets to the point that we cannot, without exacting a retaliatory strike. (Or first strike, as some would have it.) Once they have a nuclear arsenal in place, it’s too late.

How ironic that “giving peace a chance” might lead us down the path to a nuclear war that could have been avoided…

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I’m starting to feel more pessimistic about our future than I am wont to do. It seems we are stuck. Like a deer in the headlights, we cannot see which way to move. Iran has made clear their intentions and their capabilities, and they’re sitting there smirking at us while we debate all the ways and reasons we can’t retaliate, and enumerate the innumerable paths to failure. How I wish we had some real leadership in this country. If ever we needed a leader, it’s now.

One question worth asking ourselves when we go into the voting booth in November is what will each candidate’s reaction be in the event of a nuclear war in the Middle East? How long will Obama try to negotiate with a madman while he builds up his military might and prepares for a first strike?

Hang on tight, my friends. We’re headed for uncharted territory.

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One of the purposes of the Fifth Amendment is to protect private property from usurpation by government, declaring “nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” Under the law of eminent domain, the state can compel a property owner to sell his property to the government, but is required to justly compensate him for the loss. However, there are other ways in which the state can usurp private property rights without actually taking title to the property. When the state imposes regulations that deprive a citizen of the rights associated with private ownership of some or all of his property, it’s known as a “regulatory taking.”

In 1992, the U.S. Supreme Court found (Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council) that the state is only required to provide just compensation under the Fifth Amendment for regulatory takings when the regulations deprive the owner of “all economically beneficial uses of the property.” That means the state can legally deprive a property owner of over 90% of the value of his property without owing any compensation. The “categorical rule,” as this has come to be known, is a boon for any state desiring to usurp control of private land without the burden of having to compensate the lawful owners.

Rarely can it be demonstrably proven that a property has been rendered devoid of all economic value. Nevertheless, in those rare cases where that actually can be proven, the U.S. Supreme Court has granted the states yet another loophole to exempt them from having to compensate property owners for their loss. The Court ruled that, even if the regulations imposed deprive the property owner of all economically beneficial use of the property, the state is not required to provide compensation if the regulatory restrictions can be justified by “background principles of nuisance or property law.”

Under common law, nuisance is understood to be an activity or condition that unreasonably interferes with the right of other property owners to the “quiet enjoyment” of their property, or interferes with public health or safety. However, the reference to “background principles of property law” is much more ambiguous, as these background principles vary from state to state. Each state defines its own property law, and the “background principles” are often implicit assumptions that have never been explicitly spelled out until they’re claimed by the state, challenged, and settled in court. Then they become established law.

One of these background principles is the “public trust,” which we discussed at length in Private Property vs. Public Trust. Between the categorical rule and the blanket exemption for background principles of state property law, the Supreme Court has begotten a brave new form of eminent domain that enables the states to completely bypass the just compensation protection set forth by our founding fathers in the Fifth Amendment. Some states, like Oregon, are taking full advantage of that, quietly and methodically working on a number of different fronts to lay a strategic foundation of “background principles” that expand their legal bases for usurping control of private land.

What sort of long-term agenda might a state have for establishing a legal framework for unprecedented regulatory takings without compensation? The answer may lie in the influence of the rich and powerful environmental lobbies, whose agenda is to prevent as much development, timber harvesting, mining, or any exploitation of natural resources as they possibly can. Some people think that’s a good thing. But, apparently, not enough to achieve the goals of the environmental lobby without establishing government control of any resource in which they have an environmental interest. Some people are OK with that. After all, the government must know what’s best for the people, and will always act in their best interest. Therefore, it stands to reason that the government should own all natural resources (including land, air, and water) and/or control how they’re used.

The concept of government versus private control is at the core of the ideological conflict between Marxism and capitalism. Private property is a fundamentally capitalistic concept, and that is what is under attack. So, the next time you hear about some new land grab by the state, and you think it’s somebody else’s issue because it doesn’t directly affect you, consider that there’s more at stake in this game than just land.

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There are two types of property ownership recognized by law, jus privatum and jus publicum. Everybody’s familiar with jus privatum, also known as fee simple ownership. It means that you have title to a parcel of property, which confers upon you certain rights with respect to that property. Historically, private property rights have been defined as:

• The right to control the use of your property.
• The right to the benefits that accrue from your property.
• The right to sell or transfer your property.
• The right to exclude others from access to your property.

On the other hand, few people are familiar with jus publicum, also known as the public trust. Jus publicum ownership is always vested in the state, never in a private party. Unlike jus privatum, jus publicum is not transferrable. Furthermore, in any case where jus publicum can be established, it overrides jus privatum. Therein lies the rub. That enables the state to use jus publicum to abrogate your private property rights, without your consent and without compensation, in any situation where jus publicum can be established.

The idea of public trust goes back to English Common Law.

“Both the title and the dominion of the sea, and of rivers and arms of the sea, where the tide ebbs and flows, and of all the lands below high water mark, within the jurisdiction of the crown of England, are in the King. Such waters and the lands which they cover either at all times or at least when the tide is in, are incapable of ordinary and private occupation, cultivation, and improvement and their natural and primary uses are public in their nature, for highways of navigation and commerce, domestic and foreign, and for the purpose of fishing by all the King’s subjects. Therefore the title, jus privatum, in such lands, as of waste and unoccupied lands, belongs to the king, as the sovereign; and the dominion thereof, jus publicum, is vested in him, as the representative of the nation and for the public benefit.”
– U.S. Supreme Court, Shively v. Bowlby (1894)

After the American Revolution, the thirteen former colonies that made up the newly formed Union assumed the title and rights of the King to all navigable rivers within their respective territories. The jus publicum was held to be non-transferrable, acting as a permanent public easement on the jus privatum title for purposes of navigation, commerce, and fishing, as originally designated under English Common Law. At a time when rivers were the most practical means of transporting people and goods over long distances, the free use of navigable waterways was considered essential for the development of local and interstate economies.

As other states were admitted to the Union, they were guaranteed equal footing with the original thirteen, and so acquired the same title and rights to the navigable rivers within their jurisdiction.

Said rivers and waterways and all navigable waters of the said state shall be common highways and forever free as well to the inhabitants of said state as to all citizens of the United States without tax, duty, import or toll thereafter.
– Act for Admission of Oregon into the United States (1859)

In accordance with the original intent of the law, jus publicum was traditionally defined as the specific public rights associated with using rivers as “highways of navigation and commerce” and for purposes of fishing. While a highway is dedicated to public use, no sane person would claim the right to sit down in the middle of a highway and have a picnic. That is not one of the designated purposes of a highway. Likewise, it never occurred to anyone to claim that recreation would be an applicable purpose for which to invoke jus publicum. — Up until 25 years ago, that is, at which time the state of California came up with the notion that the definition of jus publicum could be extended to include whatever purposes the state might find convenient.

The objective of the public trust has evolved in tandem with the changing public perception of the values and uses of waterways. … [T]he traditional triad of uses - navigation, commerce and fishing - did not limit the public interest in the trust res. … “In administering the trust the state is not burdened with an outmoded classification favoring one mode of utilization over another.”
– California Supreme Court, National Audubon Society v. Superior Court of Alpine County (1983)

In that case, the California Supreme Court extended jus publicum to include non-navigable tributaries of Mono Lake. The court ruled that the state could prevent the Department of Water and Power for the City of Los Angeles from using its legally owned water rights because the usage interfered with the supply of water to Mono Lake. The water rights were deemed to be a public trust for “environmental and human considerations” having nothing to do with the traditional jus publicum rights relating to navigation, commerce, or fishing. The court rejected a regulatory takings claim because the land was held to be exempt from fee simple title on the grounds that it was a public trust and, therefore, no compensation was due to the plaintiff for the loss of their water rights.

That ruling opened the door for other states to expand the scope of jus publicum beyond its original intent, in whatever ways captured their imagination.

The nature of the ownership includes two components: fee simple title (the jus privatum) and dominion as the public’s trustee over the natural resource for public trust uses such as navigation, commerce, fisheries and recreation (the jus publicum).
– Oregon Department of State Lands, Rogue River Navigability Report (2008 )

Oregon, quietly and without fanfare, slipped “and recreation” into the list of rights held in trust for the public under jus publicum. Nobody blinked so, by precedent, the “right” to recreation is now part of the legal definition of the public trust in the state of Oregon. What difference does that make? If you own riverfront property, the traditional definition of jus publicum guaranteed passage for boats on the river without your explicit consent. The new and improved definition declares that anybody who wants to may have picnics and parties in your backyard (at least the part of it that extends below the high water mark). In the course of carefree recreation, people often make noise, leave litter, and sometimes do damage to property. But there’s nothing you can do about that, because the state of Oregon declared they have as much right to use your property for recreation as you do. You can ask them to pick up their litter, but you can’t enforce it. And, if they damage your property, you can try to sue them, if you can find out who they are… But you have no legal right to keep them out, or to restrict what they may do while they’re enjoying your property.

Oregon was not the first state to include recreation in the definition of jus publicum. In 1999 (National Association of Home Builders v. New Jersey Dept. of Environmental Protection), riverfront property owners were compelled to allow a public pathway along the river, through their property, with no compensation for takings, because the right to access the river for recreational purposes was ruled a public trust. Because the path is on their property, the “owners” have the responsibility of maintaining it (just like a public sidewalk) and, presumably, they also carry the liability if anyone should get hurt while traversing it.

In 2002 (Esplanade Properties, LLC v. City of Seattle), the Ninth Circuit Court used the state of Washington’s expanded definition of jus publicum to prohibit residential development of privately owned shoreline properties. Because the recreational use of the shoreline is considered a public trust, no compensation was awarded to the fee simple “owners” of the property.

According to The Idea of Property: Custom and Public Trust, in 2001 (R. W. Docks & Slips v. Wisconsin), the Wisconsin Supreme Court “expanded the public trust doctrine to include recreation and preservation of scenic beauty.” Subsequently, Florida and other states “expansively interpreted” the public trust doctrine to include both recreation and scenic beauty, as well. When the state can rule that the public’s “right” to scenic beauty supercedes the private property rights of individuals, one has to wonder if there are any limits to the ever-expanding powers of state government to abrogate our property rights for whatever arbitrary purpose they may declare.

When the state declares your property, or some part of your property, to be a public trust, it can legally deprive you of the traditional rights associated with private property ownership. In the cases cited above, property owners were deprived of the right to control the use of their property, the right to economic benefits accruing from their property, and the right to exclude others from access to their property. Yet, as long as the justification is based on jus publicum (or expanded definitions thereof), the state is not required to pay any compensation for takings under the laws of eminent domain. Because jus publicum is non-transferrable, the state will claim the property rights in question never did actually belong to you (though you will continue to owe property taxes on the property).

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I always get Independence Day and Thanksgiving confused. Not because I can’t tell a turkey from a firecracker, but because every Independence Day I am overwhelmed with gratitude.

I am proud to be an American. I love this country. I’m grateful for the fundamental freedoms, not granted by our government, but recognized by our government as inalienable, and protected by our Constitution. I’m grateful to our founding fathers, who came up with the idea of a nation dedicated to the preservation of individual rights and liberties, and persevered to establish that nation. And I am immensely grateful to all the men and women in our armed forces who have sacrificed their lives upholding those principles, and to those who continue to put their lives on the line day after day to defend our freedoms and the way of life we take for granted.

This is the greatest country on earth. Not because of the land, though it is a beautiful country and abundant with natural resources, not because of the people, because there are good and bad people everywhere, but because of the principles set forth by our founding fathers that define this nation. Liberty. Freedom. Independence. Those are three of my favorite words.

I am proud to be an American. I love this country. And I give thanks for the good fortune of having been born here and for the privilege of being an American citizen.

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“He got more than me. Mommy, make him give me some of his.” Does that sound like childish whining? Whining, certainly. But, as childish as it may sound, it’s the basis of the most devastatingly destructive politico-economic folly of the modern age. When you take that same concept and translate it into adult language, it comes out as the redistribution of wealth. Wars have been fought, hundreds of thousands of people killed, lives destroyed, property confiscated, free speech banned, totalitarian regimes established, all in the noble name of “fairness.”

Some people are born rich; others are born poor. That’s not fair! So let’s even it out. Of course, not everybody who’s rich was born rich. Many people become rich through their own hard work, intelligence, talent, skill, and enterprise. But that’s not fair, either. Intelligence and natural talent are a result of good genes. Hard work and enterprise are a result of good upbringing. That gives people with good genes and a good upbringing an unfair advantage. So the only way to level the playing field is for everybody to contribute according to their abilities, and everybody to receive according to their needs. What could possibly be more fair than that?

And, if those who have more to contribute don’t want to give up what’s theirs, that’s not fair! So the government should step in and take it by force to redistribute among those who just don’t have the talent, skill, or motivation to produce more for themselves. After all, isn’t the role of government to ensure fairness?

But the problem is bigger than any one government can solve. People all over the world are born into vastly different circumstances, with different opportunities. Some people are born in third world countries with corrupt dictatorships and little technological advancement. Other people are born in America, where generations of individual and economic freedom have created a culture where even the poorest of the poor, who live on government subsidies, are rich by the standards of most third world countries. How do we make that fair?

We would have to redistribute the wealth from America, and all the other first world countries, to all the third world countries. If all the wealth in the world were redistributed evenly, we’d all be living at barely above subsistence level, and nobody would be able to afford to invest in (or even to buy) technology, science, or medicine. When the whole word’s standard of living was reduced to the lowest common denominator, and all progress and advancement was beyond everybody’s reach, perhaps it would finally be fair.

However, once that was accomplished, there would still be people with ingenious minds and obsessive-compulsive work ethics, and some who are unfairly gifted with various sorts of talents. Those people would still be inherently driven to produce things that provide unique value to others. And those who value what they produce would inevitably find ways to pay them for it. Then the people with superior minds or talents or skills would start to amass more than others. And that just wouldn’t be fair. So what do you do with the ones who are too intelligent or too talented or too industrious to support the paradigm of universal equality in all things? You would just have to get rid of them (which is exactly what they did in the Russian and Chinese revolutions). The problem is that there will always be more of those people. They will keep cropping up, because life is not fair.

Observing the natural world, is survival of the fittest fair? No! And there’s a reason for that. Nature is intensely competitive. And human nature, being part of nature, follows the laws of nature. That’s why the most successful economies are those based on free enterprise. Because capitalism is based on human nature. The redistribution of wealth is an attempt to ensure the survival of the least fit at the expense of the fittest. It’s a recipe for reverse evolution. It has never succeeded. It will always fail. Because you can’t reverse or repeal a law of nature.

What those who claim to want “fairness” are really seeking is control. They don’t like the seeming randomness of the free market. They’re disturbed by the negative attitudes sometimes expressed in free speech. Freedom, in general, bothers them.

So, it doesn’t really come as a great surprise that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, among other prominent Democrats, seems to think fairness requires the redistribution of public opinion. Conservative talk show hosts apparently have more market share on the “public airwaves” than liberal talk show hosts. That’s not fair! Never mind that the reason they have more market share is because that’s what the market wants. That’s what the listeners have chosen to listen to, of their own free will. In the time-honored tradition of the free market, radio stations book the programs the listeners want to hear.

So, if the liberal lawmakers want the public to listen to liberal radio, but the public isn’t interested, what are the liberal lawmakers to do? Make a law, of course! In the interest of “fairness,” they can legislate that any station that airs conservative views must give equal time to liberals. And if the stations’ profits go down because they can’t sell as much advertising on programs nobody wants to hear, then that’s just tough, isn’t it? After all, we have to be “fair,” don’t we?

The liberals who support the “Fairness Doctrine” will be quick to remind you that the airways are, after all, “public.” But what does that actually mean? Perhaps, if the airwaves are public, it isn’t fair for private enterprises to profit from them at all. Does that mean all radio stations ought to be nationalized? How about television? Perhaps all forms of media should be nationalized, — in the interest of fairness, of course.

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Here in Oregon, we have no shortage of liberals. (Heck, you can’t even spit without hittin’ one.) Even in the Republican Party, it seems, many of our elected officials are leaning more and more to the left, thinking that’s where the country is headed so they might as well jump on the train. I don’t refer to these elected officials as leaders, because they aren’t leading, but following the latest trends. Sometimes they look conservative before they’re elected but, once they get to Salem, they start fading to blue. When that happens, we need to uproot them and replace them at the earliest opportunity.

What we need in the Republican Party are strong conservative leaders. Leaders who believe in the time-honored Republican principles of limited government, private property rights, and the free market. Here in Oregon, there’s a PAC that’s promoting strong conservative leadership in our government. The group is called the Conservative Majority Project, and their goal is to restore a conservative majority to the Oregon House of Representatives.

The CMP is a pretty new organization, but they succeeded in raising $45,000 for the Oregon primaries, and used it to back true conservative candidates against “moderate” Republicans. Their current goal is to raise $200,000 to back true conservative Republicans against Democrats in November. They guarantee that they will only support real conservatives. They won’t waste the money contributed by hard-working grass roots supporters on RINOs or politicians who pander to the latest political fad.

To learn more about the Conservative Majority Project, visit their Web site. They also have a blog, where they post the latest news and progress reports.

Remember, in Oregon, you can deduct $50 per person ($100 if married, filing jointly) for political contributions directly from your Oregon state taxes. This is not a deduction that reduces your taxable income, but a credit that reduces your state income tax by the actual amount of the contribution. So it doesn’t cost you anything to contribute.

If you’re an Oregon resident, you can help take back the Republican Party in Oregon and support true conservative leadership in our state government by contributing to the Conservative Majority Project.

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This date will go down in history as the date the Supreme Court finally affirmed the individual right of American citizens to keep and bear arms.

Taken in context, that was clearly the intent of the founding fathers from the beginning. The whole purpose of the Bill of Rights was to protect individual rights from usurpation by the government. However, there are those who disdain individual rights, who trust in the power of government more than in the rights of their fellow citizens. Those people have conducted a long and hard-fought campaign to focus attention exclusively on the clause about a militia, and to interpret that clause as somehow setting the 2nd Amendment apart from the rest of the Bill of Rights and excluding that particular amendment from applying to individuals.

Thankfully, the Supreme Court has now affirmed the intent of our founding fathers that we, the people of the United States of America, do have the individual right to keep and bear arms, and that the government does not have the legitimate power to strip that right from us.

God bless America! The principles of our founding fathers live on.

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To me, conservatism is about believing in the principles on which this country was founded. Those principles are grounded, not in the unlimited powers of government to regulate every aspect of our lives, but in our inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Everyone understands what’s meant by life and liberty, but the pursuit of happiness clause is not always clear to people. The government doesn’t guarantee anybody’s happiness. But what it does guarantee is that each of us has the right to pursue whatever happiness may mean to us, as individuals, in whatever way we see fit, as long as it doesn’t infringe on the rights of anybody else. That’s a powerful concept.

What makes this country unique among all nations is the fact that our founding fathers believed so strongly in individualism that they placed the rights of the individual above the rights of the collective society, or the “common good.” From its inception, this country was founded on the precepts of individual freedom and individual responsibility. As an American, you have the freedom to live your life however you choose to live it. But the corollary of that freedom is that you also have to take responsibility for your life, and the choices you make, and the consequences of those choices.

It’s not the role of the government to protect you from yourself, or from your own bad choices, poor judgment, or ignorance. That’s up to you. It’s also not up to the government to provide you with basic necessities, like food, shelter, medical care, employment, recreation, or anything else, save the protection of your individual rights. All those are your responsibility to provide for yourself and your dependents. But, by the same token, neither does the government have the right to take away what is yours to provide those things for others.

The concept of private property is fundamental to the realization of individual freedom. What you earn by the fruits of your labor, your mind, your creativity, talents, and the skills you’ve worked to develop, belongs to you and you alone. You may choose to share what’s yours with whomever you want, but that, too, is up to you. It’s not up to the government to take what you earn and redistribute it to those who can’t, or won’t, or don’t earn.

Our founding fathers recognized that, to maximize individual freedom, you have to limit the powers of government. The only truly legitimate role of the government is to protect your rights from being infringed upon by others. Quite simply, the purpose of government is to protect me from you, and you from me, and both of us from a common enemy. Locally, that means law enforcement and criminal justice. Nationally, that means a strong military. I support both.

I’m not against all taxation. I recognize that you don’t get something for nothing. The protection of my rights as a citizen, and our national sovereignty, is worth a lot to me. And I’m willing to pay for that. But I’m not willing to pay for everything else anybody wants that they can’t afford to pay for themselves. If you want something of value, you have to provide value in return. Just because you can’t afford something, doesn’t give you the right to take it out of my pocket. Nobody owes you anything, except what you earn.

The other fundamental building block of a free society is the free market. Some people confuse the phrase “free market” with “big business.” Those two concepts are orthogonal. A free market simply means that every transaction is entered into by the free will of the participants, with no coercion. A free market transaction is always win-win because, if either party doesn’t believe he’s getting more value than what he’s exchanging for it, he can walk away from the transaction. When the government imposes subsidies, tariffs, price controls, quotas, or other regulatory constraints upon the free market, it only serves to circumvent the free will of the people to choose how best to spend the money we earn, under the premise that the government knows what’s best for us better than we do.

The basic building blocks of freedom are free will, free markets, private property, and limited government. And that’s what conservatism in America is about.

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Guest Article by Jack H. Swift

This is a first for Government Is Not Your Daddy. I’ve never published a Guest Author before, but Jack Swift is somebody who truly ought to have his own blog. Anyone who regularly reads GNYD is likely to enjoy Jack’s writing as much as I do. He’s top shelf.

The great green movement driven by the Sierra Club, the Audobon Society, and other more nefarious forces appears about to run out of gas. A half century of a reckless orgy of economic extravagance driven by environmental values is finally coming home to roost. We are about to discover that you cannot protect anything if you are broke.

For nearly fifty years the new environmentalists have hounded industrial manufacturing out of business in the interest of protecting the environment. The result has been a constant elimination of jobs and the transfer of manufacturing capacity to foreign shores. That is a monstrous expense in a world economy dominated by balance of trade considerations critical to the value of one’s currency. Industry by industry, it could be selectively justified in genuine feel-good considerations of the intellectually unwary. Collectively, it has been a formula for disaster.

For nearly forty years, the new environmentalists have prevented the development of nuclear power plants as an alternative to fossil fuel powered electrical plants while the nation’s demand for more and more power has increased incrementally. Site by site, an emotional argument in opposition could always be fabricated. The cumulative effect was to have the nation buy into a collective policy recklessly discarding cheap, clean, renewable energy. In the face of growing demand, another formula for disaster.

For nearly thirty years, the new environmentalists have log-jammed the exploitation of our domestic oil resources, be it drilling in ANWR, drilling on the continental shelf, or using the shale on the continental divide. In the face of that constraint nationally, we are today forced to purchase oil overseas in a market controlled by a hostile cartel and foreign speculators. The cumulative effect of that has been a further deterioration of our balance of trade and the subjection of our currency to the artificial inflation induced by regimes bent on our destruction. Yet another unthinking, ill-conceived disaster.

For twenty years, particularly here in the Northwest, the new environmentalists have frustrated the utilization of natural resources, renewable or not. Once again creating a loss of jobs and a dependence on foreign imports. This has been an unmitigated disaster community by community, with no relief in contemplation.

Recently, the new environmentalists are driving for and effecting the removal of our hydro-electric power generation system. Once again eliminating cheap, clean, renewable power and forcing greater reliance upon foreign fuel imports.

Today, the new environmentalists are pressing our representatives Wyden and DeFazio for legislation to effectively turn the rural portions of our state into a great pristine wilderness area.

The forces of the new environmentalism recognize no economic restraint and they are more relentless than a spend-happy teenager.

We have gasoline at $4.00 per gallon, looking for $5.00 by the end of the summer. That cost factor is appearing in every commodity we consume. We cannot avoid it any more than the spendthrift can avoid the interest on his credit card debt. The effect is runaway inflation with further devaluation of our currency. The total impact portends to be an economic disaster on a scale of the great depression.

The message is the fundamental one that one cannot spend one’s limited money on luxuries one cannot afford. Enhancing the environment at the expense of the economy has led us to the brink of national insolvency. Having to work for a living is not nice, but a necessary reality of life. One undergoes the unpleasantness in the interest of comfort and survival. Despoiling the environment to a limited degree is also a necessary trade-off in the interest of economic survival.

Unthinking and injudicious commitment to aesthetic values, emotions, and desires has brought us to the brink.

As a matter of survival, it is time to consign the environmental movement to the stupid bin in the ashcan of history. We need to get about the business of restoring our solvency and we need to do it now.

– Jack H. Swift

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