Correspondence: Republicrats, Ben's father &c.
It's Never Too Late So sorry ("Books for Christmas," TAS, December :999/January 2ooo). Your request was buried under some other mail and just discovered by an intrepid team of paleontologists....
...At a time when other Americans are busily congratulating themselves on the global triumph of democracy, it appears that Sowell is close to despair over the long-term prospects for liberty in the United States...
...In this way, federal power slowly but inexorably enters "into the nooks and crannies of local and even private activities...
...Stein had not been in deep mourning, that kind of behavior should not have been tolerated by the flight attendants...
...No sales charges...
...And I never would have put up with that, even ifI had had to enlist the aid of the pilots flying the plane...
...The Democrats find it comforting...
...Correspondence (Continued from page zo) Whip DeLay were "kicking in" $5o,ooo each in support of the re-election campaign of George Nethereuff, who, using his predecessor as an example, has decided to renege on his pledge to serve no more than three terms in Congress...
...While such results do not put an end to the brutal prosecution of the war against Chechnya, they show the maturity of an electorate that might have opted for political extremism amid a decline in GDP of over 4 ~ percent since 199o...
...That was recently followed by the blurb in the Journal's "Washington Wire" of November 5, which described how the Speaker, Majority Leader Armey, and (Continued on page 7 2 ) 10 Fe b r uary 2 o o o _9 The American Spectator A clever headline is no substitute for actual long-term performance...
...The evidence is on their side, but they lack the courage of their convictions...
...Since the collapse of Communism, not only has economic decline been halted, but it has been reversed dramatically in the more reform-minded countries...
...Such free-market aims outpaced by a two-to-one margin the desire to return the country to a cenlrally planned economy...
...All men, that is, apart from the remarkable Thomas Sowell...
...In Central Europe, Communist parties have collapsed and been replaced by more social democratic, market, and democracy-oriented forces...
...All three are wonderful novels, deftly written by a working-class woman in the voice of an upper-class man...
...Sowell's appraisal, though exceedingly grim, is very much in the spirit of Democracy in America...
...It explains precisely why the majority has been handed its lunch by the Democrats time and again...
...Moreover, with the exception of Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic, Communists have not held on to power in any East European state...
...I assume I am too late, but if not here are my recommendations: Pat Barker's World War I trilogy--The Eye in the Door, The Ghost Road, and Regeneration...
...More importantly, the specter of Communist revival has virtually disappeared as a serious threat on the post-Communist horizon...
...I am sure many were touched to tears by it as they recalled their own loss of parents...
...The Republicans, afraid of the charge of racism as a campaign issue, run from doing the right thing, abandoning Senator Helms and their principles in droves...
...certainly a rational, conservative person would not worship process to the exclusion of product the way the D's do...
...With few exceptions, these are not run-of-the-mill political hacks, but skilled operatives who share Gore's decidedly green view of the world...
...nor to surrender the triumphalism that everyone who supported the prosecution of the Cold War should justifiably feel...
...Of course, those of us who've suffered as did he will doubt whether the officeholders will hear him in this forum either...
...In fact, he has the best handshake I've ever experienced...
...Nearly half of Ukraine's voters believe that participation in elections is a chance to have a real say in the fate of their struggling country...
...I also was more angered than I can possibly convey over the fact that he had to put up with a boorish "drunken former pilot and his wife...
...After all, if neither Ronald Reagan's presidency, nor the fall of the Berlin Wall, nor even Bill Clinton's (spurious) assertion that "the era of Big Government is over" could undermine the ongoing quest for cosmic justice, what can...
...These ratings may change monthly and are calculated from the fund's 3- and 5-year average annual returns in excess of 90-day Treasury bill returns with appropriate fee adjustments and a risk factor that reflects fund performance below 90-day Treasury bill returns...
...And how can liberty survive in the face of cosmic justice's ever-widening spiral of demands...
...Albania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, and Poland are all expected to grow from 3 percent to 6 percent this year...
...James Rogan does have the best handshake on Capitol Hill...
...Don't take this man lightly...
...The real story here was illustrated in Paul Gigot's Wall Street Journal column last July z3, which clearly identified the country club Republicrats as the cancer holding the Republican Party hostage...
...MERRILL ORnE YOUNC Surry, Virginia No Control The November TAS was really depressing...
...I know that there are objective reasons why the R'S do not do as well in what passes for governance these days, e.g., many coming from business rather than government and academia, but in my experience the R'S neither try nor believe that they should try to use these venues well...
...Finally, Linda Killian's description of the current speaker was almost painful...
...His subplot is unmasking idiots, especially those of Marxist bent...
...Moreover, the power these two agencies have to bestow or withhold research grants has given Carol Browner and Bill Richardson-both Gore acolytes-a decisive influence over U.S...
...DAN CALABRIA South Pasadena, Florida I Could Disagree In an otherwise lucid and well-written article about the Boy President's graceful stiff-arming of GOP congressional investigations, Byron York makes one small, but key, error ("Contempt of Congress," TAS, November 1999...
...Morningstar proprietary ratings reflect historical risk-adjusted performance as of 11/30/99...
...STEVE D. McLIN Charles Schwab 6" Co...
...They are never to even let it be known that they are flying on a pass...
...PLEASE, please do not use my nameI am retired from the airline he wrote about, and I am dependent on them for my passes, and my pension...
...That judges, instead of resisting the quest for cosmic justice, have become its leading advocates, would have stunned Tocqueville, who began his career as an apprentice judge at Versailles...
...He certainly stands out in a body full of the self-serving and the waffling...
...It is this new-found economic and political maturity of voters that is the best reason for long-term optimism and the real reason why celebration of Communism's collapse deserves to be more spirited...
...BonNER R. CoHen Senior Fellow Lexington Institute Arlington, Virginia Jesuitical Bill I've just finished "Unborn Again," Paul Sperry's piece on Bill Bradley in your December/January issue...
...The tenth anniversary of Communism's collapse is the commemoration of one of the two central events of the twentieth century--the other being the defeat of Nazism and fascism in World War II...
...Similarly, economically ravaged Ukraine (where recorded GDP has fallen to under 5 ~ percent of that in 199o ) saw the defeat of the Communist presidential candidate and the re-election of the pro-Western incumbent Leonid Kuchma...
...For many investors, the beginning of a new year signifies the time to reassess the performance of their IRA investments...
...There is no excuse for their steadfast refusal to understand how the game is played...
...NAME WITHHELD via the Internet I was deeply moved by Ben Stein's recounting of his father's death...
...In a perfect world they might be right...
...I walked out, never to return...
...Source for Lipper data: Lipper Inc...
...Most of the region's countries recently suffered from the currency crises that hit the emerging markets of Brazil, Malaysia, and Russia, which even led to a downturn in the more stable economies of Central Europe...
...The fund seeks long-term capital appreciation by investing in established companies with strong market positions in growing industries...
...The novels are about World War I, the struggle, the home front, the nature of bravery and cowardice and what one does when one realizes that the war is just an awful mistake...
...The behavior of those two people is unforgivable...
...But, I pray he does find some solace as time goes on...
...Poland's GDP is 15o percent of what it was in 199o, Slovakia's and Hungary's GDP are up about lZO percent, and the Czech Republic is also better off...
...And the public also rejects authoritarian solutions...
...While I lived through the last few years of Republican "control" of Congress, I was still not prepared to review the gory details of what is best described as Ineptitude Rising to Incompetence...
...I don't feel that time ever really eases the pain very much...
...Because of nigh on to fifty years of Democrat hegemony in most of the country, the subject matter experts in both the executive and legislative branches of most governments are either actively Democrats or know well that one alienates the D'S at the peril of their career...
...T Rowe Price Investment Services, Inc., Distributor...
...74 Fe b r uar y 2 o o o _9 The American Spectator...
...Stein's grateful acknowledgment of President Clinton's note of sympathy was a class act, considering the source and the venue...
...But here, too, Sowell takes issue with Tocqueville...
...All of these factors should give you some idea of why so many individual contributors have discontinued their financial support of the Republicans--simply because they don't deserve it-and that's A1 Gore's opportunity...
...Byron York's report on the ineptitude of the investigation panels spoke volumes...
...W.J...
...One Sunday, in...Oxford, the minister preached a sermon that blatantly defended white Rhodesian power...
...Republicans must both learn the technical aspects of governance and attract and hold people who can do the things that effective and orderly government requires...
...The tone of the report seemed to be that Bradley had been caught in something shameful or deceptive...
...JOHN O'NE1L Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Best Pitch I agreed wholeheartedly with most of your "Best and Worst On the Hill" (TAS, November 199 @ From limited, but firsthand experience, I have the following comments on some of your winners...
...Drawn mostly from environmental groups and the big foundations that fund them, Gore's allies are calling the shots at the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy...
...You left out the category of"Best Manners...
...n other words, don't let the carping and nit-picking that marked the anniversary of Communism's collapse lead you to lose your sense of perspective...
...28.42%, 24.48%, and 21.83% are the fund's average annual returns for the 1-year, 5-year, and since inception (6/30/93) periods ended 9/30/99, respectively...
...IRA052252 activism," judges have increasingly become results-oriented rather than process-oriented...
...But since this preceded the faith testimony in his 1968 interview in The Christian Athlete, even this possibility doesn't hold water...
...Senator Helms is always knowledgeable, honest, and ethical...
...To believe otherwise would be complete folly...
...The tenth anniversary reconsiderations paid scant attention to evidence that the countries in which reforms have been the most far-reaching have significantly expanded their gross domestic output...
...These charlatans are slippery, and masquerade as "facilitators" of diverse causes, such as insect rights, transgender uplift, and the rest...
...Post-Communism's economic successes are exceeded by political gains...
...Authoritative consultants and witnesses will not often, and certainly not a second time, place themselves in a position where their reputation may well be permanently damaged...
...The hearings for Carol Mosely-Braun are a ease in point...
...Why...
...So I was deeply touched for him at his loss...
...As Tocqueville argued in that book's dazzlingly brilliant introduction (published in 1835), the endless search for ever-higher levels of social equality"is a Providential fact...
...It is universal, it is durable, it constantly eludes all human interference, and all events as well as all men contribute to its progress...
...Thank you, Ben, for sharing him with us...
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...The Republicans in Congress have angered and abandoned their base...
...It is far more likely to be eroded away, bit by bit, amid glittering promises and expressions of noble ideals...
...As Prof...
...Public consciousness continues to move in the direction of greater tolerance and reveals a high satisfaction with political and personal freedoms...
...Herbert Stein was a remarkable man in many respects, not the least of which was as a truly wonderful father...
...This reminds me of an old farmer in an Illinois barber shop prior to Nixon's second run who said, "Guess I'll vote for Gus 72 February 2 0 o o - The American Spectator Hall, at least he's honest as to what he is...
...The fund was rated among 3,309 and 2,081 domestic equity funds for the three- and five-year periods ended 11/30/99, respectively.* Of course, past performance cannot guarantee future results...
...What, then, is to be done...
...But I was so moved by Ben Stein's sharing his pain over his father's death, I felt I had to write...
...JAY MADISON via the Internet Men of Troy My heartfelt thanks to Daniel E. Troy for "The GOP's Hearing Loss" (TAS, November x999...
...In many respects, the Gore administration has been in power since Bill Clinton was inaugurated in 1993...
...That former pilot and his wife were on virtually free passes...
...He is a true statesman whose guiding principle is to do the right thing in terms of the well-being of the United States and its Constitution...
...GARY C. WHITWORTH, Redlands, California I read Ben Stein's account of his father's passing-with tears in my eyes, I phoned my father...
...If Bill Bradley lost his Christian faith in his twenties, that is deeply lamentable, but surely it is a catastrophe personal to him and not something with which to try to discredit him in some way...
...The Gore network extends to the United Nations and a host of international bodies pushing global health, population, and environmental policies-all laid out in frightening detail in Earth in the Balance...
...T he second great bulwark of liberty in America, Tocqueville believed, was the prevalence of voluntary associations...
...As many have warned in the past, freedom is unlikely to be lost all at once and openly...
...However, it is without a doubt that the liberal press will gleefully lead the charge on any Gephardt-led investigations of Bush II Administration foibles...
...The standards and regulations EPA and DOE can impose are staggering in their impact...
...If we take into account that the postCommunist societies have far higher rates of poverty and lower living standards than their Western counterparts, this is one of the most important indicators of successful transition and of the victory of democratic values...
...RICHARD COHEN Washington Post Washington, D.C...
...The racism charge is both ridiculous and refutable...
...For all his obvious weaknesses as a campaigner, A1 Gore remains one of the most formidable political figures in America today...
...I lost my mother almost a year ago, and the grief never leaves...
...As subsequent events proved, the majority of the incumbents continued to be the Republicrats they always were...
...These are hardly the characteristics of societies that are in deep trouble or in danger of failing...
...I can only say to Mr...
...Stein that I am so sorry that he had to put up with such stupidity when his heart was already breaking...
...Figures include changes in principal value, reinvested dividends, and capital gain distributions...
...It was a moving tribute to a good man by an equally good and faithful son...
...Isn't that a good reason to bring out the champagne...
...Maybe it's time to move your IRA...
...Since the 196o's , he maintains, "federal 'aid' to innumerable activities from highway building to university research and from urban redevelopment to hospitals and adoption agencies" has increasingly drained voluntary associations of their vitality and brought them under government control...
...Only one possibility occurs to me: Bradley (if we can believe his story) was looking for an excuse to walk out, self-righteously indignant...
...I've laughed, I've cried, I've been forced to re-think some of my positions, but I've never been so moved as I was by this account...
...Or so Bradley claims, providing what Sperry calls "a convenient and noble ending to what...could be construed as an ignoble chapter in his life...
...But it is equally true that while most people in the former Soviet bloc may still complain, they have made a clear choice to opt for the future and to stand with economic and political freedom...
...In Russia, centrist and center-right political movements won a combined vote of 54 percent versus just a little over 25 percent for the Communist party and 6 percent for Vladimir Zhirinovsky's ultra-nationalists...
...I don't get it...
...He, and the rest of your able writers, always do so...
...Gore understands the importance of having trusted lieutenants stationed at key positions within the federal bureaucracy...
...Smoking them out is difficult business, and I look to Mr...
...Bowman to give me a few clues...
...As the chart shows, it has outperformed its Lipper Category Average of peer growth funds since inception and has also earned Morningstar's highest rating of five stars (-k--k--k-Yr,) for its overall risk-adjusted performance...
...These are brilliant, wise books...
...It strikes me that Bradley, a (presumably) good Protestant, would never have accepted anything by Pope John Paul II as binding on all of Christianity...
...The Americans," he wrote, "make associations to give entertainments, to found seminaries, to build inns, to construct churches, to diffuse books, to send missionaries to the antipodes...
...in this manner they found hospitals, prisons and schools...
...After the Republicans took "control" of Congress in 1994, I was deluded into thinking that the conservative philosophy had a chance...
...Good staffers will not -- cannot -- work for free the way many R's expect them to...
...The Pope is the only one in Christianity with a claim to both Apostolic Succession and infallibility in matters of faith and morals...
...It is a disgrace to the country (not to mention the host country) to send an ambassador who, were she not a Democrat and a minority, would be in jail...
...Keep in mind how much has been accomplished...
...York asks, "Who could disagree, after everything that has happened...
...Daniel Troy's recounting his experience as an expert witness for the "controlling" Republicans should be required reading for anyone naive enough to volunteer their time...
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...One more reason to vote against him...
...BERND ULKEN Fly Creek, New York I have never written to a magazine before...
...Largent, Hall of Fame football player, should win the category of "Best Athlete...
...SHEPHERD via the Internet Spectator's Journol/Karatnycky (Continued from page 57) never really got their hands on state power...
...SULLIVAN Gainesville, Florida What point was Paul Sperry trying to make in writing "Unborn Again Bill Bradley" and why did you publish it...
...Although Sowell urges Americans to set aside the quest for cosmic justice and rally to the defense of"the institutions and traditions which produce the enormous social and economic good fortune of Americans," one gets little sense from his book that he actually anticipates their doing so, Rather, he seems to believe that what he calls "the quiet repeal of the American revolution," already well under way, is irreversible...
...The fund received 4 and 5 stars for the 3- and 5-year periods, respectively...
...Why would a comment in a sermon by some faceless English Protestant minister carry such weight...
...There is no excuse for COP leaders to sit idly by as these courageous witnesses are excoriated by some of the most loathsome people in our nation's history...
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...Well, I disagree strongly, since one major facet of the success of Team Clinton's actions must be considered: the mainstream media, which helped bury the Thompson hearings and led the public to not care about the various Clinton travails...
...Republicans who are actually governing rather than sitting in the back row complaining must be able to call on these people and in the act of patronage that the D's understand so well, offer them a political appointment to entice them away from the D's...
...In "Best Looking," I'd give a slight but definite edge to Asa Hutchinson over Steve Largent...
...BILL AXTELL Ferndale, Michigan Herbert Stein, RIP Our thanks to Ben Stein for the poignant farewell to his father ("Au Revoir, Pop," TAS, November 1999...
...Someday history will acknowledge his vital importance to this country's affairs both domestic and foreign...
...While Kuchma's victory will not necessarily speed up reforms, a comprehensive and reliable poll showed that half of Ukraine's voters cited the importance of lowering of taxes on business, implementing deep market reforms, and ending bureaucratic interference in economic life...
...While discussing the ability of future presidents to follow the Clinton model, a former Bush administration official implies that future Republican presidents will be able to use the same tactics to fend off congressional inquiries, and Mr...
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...Ironically," he notes, "economists have been discovering the enormous importance of the rule of law at about the same time as judges have been sacrificing the rule of law to attempts to make the law more just, compassionate, equal, or more in tune with the judges' own perceptions of social realities...
...I nominate Ed Bryant, the gentleman from Tennessee...
...I was sadly mistaken in failing to realize that it was only a handful of conservatives who had been newly elected that year...
...It's little short of Jesuitical...
...In short, Bradley's "reason" for leaving his church is actually an ex-post facto excuse for his radical secularization, what used to be called a rationalization...
...In this regard, favorable quotes in support of Hastert from the likes of Peter King and Christopher Shays give the speaker the Republicrat stamp of approval, which I'm sure he dearly covets...
...This summer he pitched The American Spectator " Fe b r ~ a r y 2 o o o 73 brilliantly in the Republicans' 19-1 smashing victory over the Democrats in the annual congressional game...
...I am a retired flight attendant...
...science policy...
...This gradual loss of liberty is exactly what Tocqueville feared would happen in a democratic society devoted to equality...
...Through their countless associations, Americans acquire a taste for public initiative which they are unlikely to surrender to an all-powerful state...
...In both states, Communists suffered significant electoral setbacks and the electorates express a keen desire to continue along the path of market democracy that has been taken by such countries as Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic...
...Many inside the bureaucracies are attracted to Republican ideas, but ideas will not run a government...
...Great ideas will not help if one does not know which switches and levers make the beast run...
...The airline goes to great lengths to stress to pass-riders that they behave in an absolute aboveboard fashion...
...R.T...
...Republicans have only recently come to power in many states and have no reserves of knowledgeable employees to call on...
...Maybe next year...
...SUE WARNER Odenton, Maryland In the Mood I do not care for movies, but read James Bowman with the stereo turned offand a second glass of wine at the ready...
...Investment return and principal value will vary, and shares may be worth more or less at redemption than at original purchase...
...The fund may be appropriate for retirement investors primarily seeking capital growth over time and who are willing to assume market risk...
...It is clear that the effort to rebuild societies, communities, and economies ravaged by Communism is difficult, filled with uncertainty and full of economic suffering (particularly for pensioners, who saw the value of Communism's worthless scrip evaporate...
...San Francisco, California A Helms Man Just a note to express my gratitude for John Corry's enlightening article on the only principled Republican remaining in the United States Senate, Jesse Helms ("Jesse's World," TAS, November 1999...
...Richard Rose of Scotland's University of Strathclyde points out in the Journal of Democracy, among East Central European countries "only in Romania does the total vote for fragmented anti-democratic parties begin to approach the vote won in established democracies by Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front in France or Jorg Haider's Freedom Party in Austria...
...Gore in the Balance Byron York's "President Gore" (TAS, December :999/January 2000) should come as a rude awakening to those secure in the notion that the vice president's sometimes inept public appearances and seeming lack of self-identity will keep him from ever occupying the White House...
...Even if the pilot had been paying full-fare First Class, and even if Mr...
...Election results in two of the most economically depressed post-Communist states--Russia (where elections for members of parliament were held in mid-December) and Ukraine (where a presidential election was held in late November)--make clear the depth of the transition...
...For many years, I've read Ben's Diary...
...ART CHANCE Juneau, Alaska I will recommend to everyone Daniel Troy's article about the shabby treatment afforded to witnesses who testify before Congress at the behest of the Republican majority...
...I wouldn't be surprised in zooo if many vote Democratic since that's all we seem to get anyway--except in North Carolina...
...Scientists who stray from Gore's fold on issues ranging from biotechnology to global warming know they will have to forego federal research money...
...But according to the European Bank for Recons~uction and Development, this year the average growth rate for Central and Eastern Europe (i.e., the ex-Communist countries that were not part of the USSR and the Baltic states) will range from a little over 1. 5 percent to well over 3 percent...
...That said though, the D's wrote the book on what both the media and the people expect government to look like...
Vol. 33 • February 2000 • No. 1
