And the U.N. out of the U.S.
Tyrrell, R. Emmett Jr.
E D I T O R I A L AND THE U.N. OUT OF THE U.S. by R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. L a s t month the buffoonery that passes for s t a t e c r a f t at the United Nations made New York's Mayor Edward...
...Instead both papers seem eager to continue creating the impression that an unconscionably large "tax cut" was enacted, threatening to drain the Treasury and expose us to massive deficits...
...Unfortunately, the UN's days of decency have passed...
...4 APRIL 1982 SENATOR WILLIAMS FIGHTS BACK by R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr...
...Doing so would jeopardize his case and leave him lonely...
...Our institutions have been successfully drained of legitimacy by sophists and of efficacy by those judges who dream of perfect justice ~ven as they free the most ferocious thugs...
...Last May he was convicted...
...There are missiles and s a t e l l i t e s . There is that stupendous terrorism network that Claire Sterling talks about in her recent book...
...Instead, they will stay home and watch television, go jogging, write novels, or even, it is sometimes alleged (although one can scarcely credit such things' happen~ng in a nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are c r e a t e d equal), actually exchange things among themselves without advising government agents that they are so occupied/ In November 1980, the American people elected a new President, Ronald Reagan, who was said to be cognizant of all these problems, and who did indeed set about the task of reducing those very high tax rates on income...
...In time enough new leaks might spring in the nation's system of justice to overturn the conviction leaving him scot-free and surrounded by those literary agents who merchant fat removal manuals and other such best-selling works of art...
...On these momentous matters the Adapted from RET's weekly Washington Post column syndicated by King Features...
...The lady doesn't understand that the "10 percent tax c u t , " as she calls it, is already being wiped out this year thanks to inflation...
...He protests that he is innocent...
...The United States pays some one billion dollars of the UN's budget, and is condignly reviled for its man)' kindnesses...
...In addition, if you live in the District of Columbia, you must then give about ten percent of each transaction to the local government, and another chunk to " s o c i a l s e c u r i t y , " this l a t t e r imposition deriving from the assumption that you are too improvident to save for your own retirement and thus must be compelled to do so under the t h r e a t of imprisonment...
...All would delight in stopping to bend his ear...
...Now his case will not go to the floor until March 3. Some say the senator, now convicted and sentenced, should resign on his own...
...In this era of juridical glory, why should an innocent man resign...
...The interior of the UN puts one in mind of the urban campus of some third-rate state university: There are posters booming the c u r r e n t good causes (the PLO and SWAPO), seminar rooms sparsely attended, and what appear to be overaged foreign students loafing in the slightly grimy hallways...
...This, I had to see...
...i~HE AMERICAN SPECTATOR Mayor Koch is in good form...
...The explanation for the senators' hesitancy is provided by a wise Norwegian judge who viewed the present state of criminal procedure in the West and observed, "our grandfathers punished, and they did so with a clear conscience [and] we punish too, but we do it with a bad conscience...
...In case you have already fallen asleep, monetary policy is the government's method of creating the money that you may or may not have in your pocket or bank account...
...This steady accumulation of leaks is called judicial reform...
...He knows what every petty scamp and every arrant scoundrel knows, namely: If a convicted felon insists on his innocence stubbornly enough a growing number of softheads will come to believe and even admire him...
...This it does by promising to return the money once more to some specially selected pockets: those that are organized into groups able to use effective lobbying tactics before Congress (e.g., "welf a r e " groups, r e p r e s e n t e d by The Washington Post Co., and so on...
...Certainly I have seen no mention of the Philadelphia Fed articles in either paper...
...What keeps Senator Williams's colleagues from expelling him...
...Let the UN move its headquarters to progressive Moscow...
...Then think of people like Senator Baker, who spend their waking lives trying to think of innovative but legal ways of tweaking some of those dollars out of your wallet...
...And if, as the UN leadership implied last week, the General Assembly is such a boon to its host city, let them move to a needy Third World city: for instance, beautiful Bamako, Mali, or Ouagadougou, Upper Volta...
...I, for one, believe him...
...J u s t last March we saw a young man ambush the President and three other men...
...L a s t month the buffoonery that passes for s t a t e c r a f t at the United Nations made New York's Mayor Edward Koch mad...
...That is, if he makes an additional dollar over and above the $20,000, he must give 48 and a half pennies of that dollar to the local and federal governments...
...Our i n t e r e s t s are ambushed . Our allies, when in need, ostracized and f r u s t r a t e d . For my part I care not a snort for South Africa, but Israel merely tries to survive in a sea of hostile and unreasoning instability...
...This overall arrangement is called the "welfare state," although the "police state" is perhaps more accurate...
...Presumably, were he a United States senator he would still have his seat...
...For Baker to propose it shows that over the past 18 months he has learned nothing about taxation, incentives, and marginal effects...
...government...
...First of all think of your wallet, which may have a few dollars in it...
...It goes without saying that if such a surtax were to pass and remain unvetoe~l, Reagan's whole program would certainly be doomed...
...All that the accused must do is lie long and hard...
...The end result of all these compulsory expropriations by government is that a single person in D.C...
...And there are those ghastly biological and chemical weapons, developed by the Soviets in violation of the 1925 Geneva Protocol on gas warfare and the 1972 Biological Weapons convention...
...He insists that he was set up...
...They were understandably reluctant at first to loosen their grip on the national income...
...Somehow the charnel proceedings have been delayed five times since then...
...Notice that the misleading phrase "tax cuts" blurs the distinction between tax rates and revenues and in fact makes intelligent discussion of the whole topic of taxation almost impossible...
...The money that you are compelled to save is then taken from you and given to someone who has recently retired...
...Then there might be appearances on talk shows and a profitable place on the campus lecture circmt...
...But by 1981, sufficient of them were persuaded (or so it seemed) by the argument that I'HE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1982 5 EDITORIAL (continued from page 5) alleged gunman, John Hinckley Jr., insists that he too is innocent...
...Moreover, by declaring that Israel "is not a peaceloving n a t i o n " the resolution established grounds for Is.rael's expulsion...
...Then think of reporters like Helen Dewar who will rush forth with page-one stories about the hitherto unsuspected compassion and (don't forget) "pragmatism" that animates such lawmakers, stories that are glowing and laudatory to the precise degree that such statesmen attempt to divert a larger proportion of the GNP into the headwaters of the Potomac, thence to the nation's capital...
...He has not even been convicted and sentenced...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1982 39...
...Fetched by visions of macabre spectacle, last month, I decided to see the place for myself...
...fiscal policy is the government's method of taking it back again...
...For a goodly portion of 1981 he grappled with Congress, a bicameral body of 535 men and women dedicated to the proposition that spending other p e o p l e ' s money is both fun and helpful at reelection time...
...They ignore the momentous fact that the senator protests that he is innocent...
...with $20,000 of taxable income is in the 48.5 percent marginal tax bracket...
...Why, really, should Senator Williams resign...
...Policemen are standing by in the background, ready to enforce this t h r e a t if the government's demand is not meekly complied with...
...This forum of "peace-loving nations" has become a forum of hate and a source of mischief...
...Imagine, the aforementioned nations passing judgment on Israel's credentials as a peace-loving nation...
...To blame Israel or the United States for these troubles is surrealistic...
...It further delegitimates an important American institution...
...This is the appalling condition of the Noble Experiment three decades after its birth in the ruins of World War II...
...Really, it's quite simple...
...People are supposed to add up the total number of transactions and exchanges they make in any given year, and from each additional exchange, the government demands a larger and larger slice...
...D e s p i t e our admittedly flyblown canons of dignity and good sense, the jig is not yet up for Senator Harrison Arlington Williams, J r . In October 1980 he was indicted on bribery and conspiracy charges...
...The United States ought not to be its host...
...Were Israel to disappear tomorrow as many UN members wish it would, the hatreds of the Middle East would continue: Arab against Arab, Muslim against Muslim...
...Accompanied by Kenneth Adelman, our jovial and unusually learned deputy permanent representative, I strolled through the softly lit halls, peeked into sleepy conference rooms, marvelled at the talents of two hardpressed bartenders as they attempted to quench the prodigious thirsts of the giants of world statecraft during their mid-afternoon happy hour...
...Then he invited the UN to depart New York...
...We Americans have, of late, seen a lot of suspicious behavior on the tube...
...most of his colleagues would act no differently if lured into such sinful circumstances...
...Now the mayor can be an amusing fellow, but when i r k e d / a n d irked for good reason--he can be a genius...
...If he knew more than one-fifth of the waving, bowing statesmen I should be s u r p r i s e d . American diplomats here are t r e a t e d as the grand patrons, and so they are...
...Thus the Baker surtax would be a tax rate increase, presumably raising the top rate to 55 percent...
...Still he remains the senior senator from the g r e a t s t a t e of New J e r s e y , and why should he not...
...I n earlier times, of course, Senator Williams would have resigned like a gentleman...
...The Senate Ethics Committee last August 24 voted to expel the Hon...
...Simple respect for the authority of the United States Senate would have induced a man convicted and sentenced for felonious acts to depart...
...We hesitate to impute guilt to anyone," says Professor Walter Berns, author of For Capital Punishment, "because we are so uncertain of our right to do so...
...The more overwhelming the evidence against the accused the more plausible his pleas of innocence will be to the multitudes of softheads who inhabit the elite provinces of our society...
...Subject: monetary and fiscal policy...
...After all, quite possibly he is innocent...
...These weapons are now being used by the Soviets and their clients in Afghanistan and Southeast Asia...
...Why, indeed, would anyone in America today admit guilt for anything...
...The wall now bears an inscription from the Prophet .Isaiah frequently heard during the UN's winsome youth, "They shall beat their swords into plowshares . . ." Noting the UN as it is now'in its years of seedy dissipation, the mayor would like to add references to "hypocrisy, immorality, and cowardice...
...For e~tample, if you are unmarried and your transactions to date are valued at $41,500, then you must hand over half of the value of each additional exchafige to the U.S...
...What keeps his colleagues from expelling him...
...I see in today's Washington IJost, for example, a typically misleading story about the remarkable "federal income surtax" proposed by Sen...
...True, anyone who wished to watch the evening news last spring could have seen him on film suavely convincing a simulated sheik of his power to bend laws in his bare hands, but in this g r e a t day being caught flagrante delicto is no proof of anything...
...The main instrument of fiscal policy is taxation, whereby the government interposes its hand between two people engaged in a voluntary transaction, threatening to send either or both to jail if they do not hand over a percentage of that transaction to the government official...
...Then imagine this money being "Doled" out to constituents (Dole's another one, you should know), who will vote for him on reelection day...
...Still, he did commit felonies...
...W e l l , now you know something about fiscal policy...
...our FBI would be much relieved...
...Swords are not being transformed, rather they are being modernized...
...Instead it is devoted to t h r e e g r e a t goals: embarrassing the United States, delegitimating Israel, and working some kind of exorcism on South Africa...
...The Charmer From Tennessee," reads the page-one headline...
...In such metropolises the world statesmen would have a lot more time to medit a t e on American hellishness, and they would grow more svelte and upright...
...gentleman...
...Today, however, there remains not much respect for authority, nor much authority...
...You see what I mean...
...Yet the (continued on page 39) 9 Q Q O @ O O O g @ O Q O Q Q O O Q b . . . . . . . . 0 @ O O ~ ý84 . . . . @ @ @ O @ . . . . . . . Q 0 0 @ @ . . . . . . . . . . . . ~ O O O J O . . . . @ @ @ O 9 @ @ 9 6 0 0 @ 0 Q . . . . 6 O O ~ I O O O O t @ O O O O O t . . . . 0 9 Q ~ . . . . B Q O O O Q ~ O Q @ @ O O O O 0 @ @ 0 0 . . . . . @ O Q @ O O 0 O O @ O OCCASIONAL ECONOMICS by Tom Bethell C l a s s will come to order for today's lecture in our "Occasional Economics" series...
...His presence obviously brings further disrepute to the Senate...
...Heated to the boiling point by a n o t h e r of the United Nations' hallucinogenic resolutions, the mayor set out to make editorial changes on a city-owned wall across the s t r e e t from the Noble Experiment...
...All acknowledged Ambassador Adelman with various degrees of obsequiousness...
...Now Judge George Pratt has sentenced him to three years in the hoosegow (he could have gotten 15) and imposed a $50,000 fine...
...UN remains quiescent...
...It also singled out the United States specifically for abuse...
...I n the UN's most recent act of infamy 86 nations--among them Libya, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Laos, Vietnam, and the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic--had voted another hate-Israel resolution..This one urged all the nations of the world to isolate Israel for its annexation of the Golan Heights...
...Now I know I had meant to say something about monetary policy, which is good fun and games because it is so little understood and so controversial, but that will have to wait until class reconvenes...
...he has pored over the Bible to find a suitable passage...
...A sonority about beating swords into plowshares might have had some vague relevance to the UN's activities in the 1950s when empires were being broken up, embryonic nations established, and conflicts arbitrated somewhat successfully...
...In fact, he has not even been tried...
...Supply-siders are people who believe that such levels of taxation, unprecedented in American history, r e f l e c t a c o n s i d e r a b l e measure of g r e e d on the part of government officials of every description, and discourage people from engaging in voluntary exchange beyond a certain point...
...The UN ought to pack up and depart...
...CAPITOL IDEAS (continued from page 6) As far as I know, this feature of the 1981 Tax Act--that it was not a real rate reduction at all but little more than an indexing of the rates (the formal indexing of the tax brackets does not begin until 1985)--has not yet been reported either by the New York Times or the Washington Post...
...Howard Baker, new darling of the Washington war-dance set and the subject, in last week's Washington Post, of a "Strange New Respect" profile by Helen Dewar...
...Today's story, again by Dewar, has the following: "Although Baker did not go into details, other sources said a temporary surtax of 5 percent or 10 percent is being 'discussed' among Senate Republicans . . . . The surtax would virtually wipe out the 10 percent tax cut that Congress has approved for this year, although technically it would leave the Reagan tax program in place...
Vol. 15 • April 1982 • No. 4
