The Republican Club of Sun City Newsletter

November 2013 Everett Schmidt, Editor Sun City Texas REPRESENTATIVE FARNEY TO ADDRESS CLUB

Representative Marsha Farney – who represents House District 20 – will address the club during its dinner meeting scheduled for Thursday, November 14 in the ballroom of the Social Center in Sun City. Her address will center on the past and coming legislative sessions.

Elected to the State Board of Education in 2010, she was subsequently elected to the House position in 2012 where she serves on the following committees: Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence, Local and Consent Calendars, and Public Education.

The Social Period, Dinner and Program. A social period will begin at 6:00 PM. The dinner will begin at 6:30 PM and will be followed by the program. The dinner will consist of roast beef with gravy, potatoes, green beans, and salad.

Cost. Cost is $16 per person. Checks made out to The Republican Club of Sun City should be mailed to: The Republican Club of Sun City, 1530 Sun City Blvd., Suite 120, Box 227, Georgetown, TX 78633. The deadline for payment or reservations is Friday, November 8.

Club treasurer John Congdon has set up a special collection box on his front porch at 610 Farm Hill Drive for individuals wishing to hand-deliver payments, provided delivery is made by the Friday deadline. For information about reservations, contact John at 512-686-1676 or johnsctx@gmail.com

VISITORS ARE WELCOME!
CLUB WILL NOT MEET IN DECEMBER

Following a practice of long standing, the club will not meet during the month of December. The next meeting (after the November meeting) is scheduled for Thursday, January 9, 2014.

OTHER CLUB NEWS

The Nominating Committee – comprised of Julian Bucher (chairman), Robert Fears, and Harlow Fisher – recommends the following slate of officers for 2014: president – Robert Fears; first vice president (for membership) – Bill Chiles; second vice-president (for programs) – John Graves; treasurer – John Congdon; secretary – Bernie Miller.

Voting will take place during the club’s November 14 meeting. According to club bylaws, at that meeting, nominations from the floor can also be submitted, provided the prior consent of the nominee has been obtained, and provided written information about the nominee has been furnished to the president prior to the meeting.

Club treasurer John Congdon reports the number of attendees at the October 30 dinner meeting was 150.

NEWS OF THE COUNTY PARTY

The county party’s major fund raiser, the Reagan Dinner, has been scheduled for the Sun City Ballroom on Monday, February 17, 2014. Information about the program and the purchase of tickets will be provided later.

SOCIALISM, COMMUNISM AND THE AMERICAN FORM OF GOVERNMENT

The adoption of the socialistic health care law known as ObamaCare is but one indication of the drift of the nation toward socialism – and maybe even communism. Other indications are the various distribution of wealth schemes such as welfare, having about one-half of the citizens bear the federal tax burden while about one-half receive taxpayer largesse, and an ever-growing dependency of the citizenry on government.

One way to dramatize the differing results in a country having a socialist-communist form of government compared with a country having a basically free market form of government is to visually compare North and South Korea, hence the above photo.

The above is a satellite photo made in 2003 of the Korean peninsula. The photo clearly identifies the 38th parallel which separates North and South Korea, and reveals the markedly differing characteristics of those two countries.

It may be safely assumed that the lights are from population centers and provide some indication of a vibrant economy and a productive citizenry as evidenced by the fact that major auto industries (Hyundai and Kia), major electronics industries (Samsung), and the world’s largest ship building industry are located in that country.

And it may be safely assumed – along with verifying reports in the media – that the absence of such lights indicates a sluggish economy and a citizenry living a drab existence.

The Korean peninsula was once a single nation which, as a consequence of WW II, became two nations. But why did North Korea – and other socialist-communist countries – seem not to prosper as does South Korea?

A response to that question is the main thrust of this news article.

Some Rudimentary Definitions. Socialism – “a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and/or controlled by the state . . .a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism . . .” Communism – “a totalitarian system of government in which a single authoritarian party controls state-owned means of production . . .”

One writer contends that, although North Korea is a communist country, it is governed more like a socialist republic because its highest decisions are made by the National Defense Commission of North Korea.

While the controversy over ObamaCare has triggered some debate about socialism, it is still likely that, as author Kirby Anderson has stated, “The average American couldn’t tell you the difference between socialism and capitalism if his or her life depended on it’ – an observation even more applicable to the “low-information” voter.

America’s First Experience With Socialism. President Obama and the Democrats are clearly attempting at this time to take the nation down the pathway to socialism, and perhaps even beyond. Although not generally reported in history textbooks, America had experimented with socialism during the very earliest days of its founding. That experience can be pertinent to the present debate on socialism.

In 1620, one hundred two passengers, known as Pilgrims, left England on the ship “Mayflower” for the New World under a contract with their backers which said, in part: “That all persons as are of this colony have their meat, drink, apparel, and all provisions out of the common stock and goods . . . In addition, all the land cleared and the structures they built belonged to the community.

This arrangement smacks of socialism if not communism. And as is typical with those forms of government, the arrangement proved hugely unsuccessful. William Bradford, Governor of the colony, after a trial period, wrote that a change was needed so that the colonists “might not still languish in misery.” He said further that the arrangement “was found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort.”

By 1625, the colonists, after their unfortunate experience, decided to put an end to this “common course.” In place of the original arrangement, every family was assigned its own plot of land to work and permitted to market its own crops and products. Bradford reported on the result: “This had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so that much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Governor or any other could use . . .”

The Worldview of Socialists. Generally speaking, socialism is a system in which the means of production are owned and/or controlled by the state. Socialism is simply the first stage of communism. Marxism is a subject of humanism. Each of the “isms” is related to the others, and each represents an atheistic worldview. That worldview can be illustrated by examining the following sampling from Humanist Manifesto 2000, a document which codifies to some extent the belief system of humanists and, to some extent, progressives and liberals in American. One can recognize in that document some conflicts with the tenets of our founding documents, particularly with respect to a deity, nationalism and moral values.

Atheism. We find insufficient evidence for belief in the existence of a supernatural; it is either meaningless or irrelevant to the question of the survival and fulfillment of the human race. As nontheists, we begin with humans not God, nature not deity.

Evolution. Humanism believes that man is part of nature and that he has emerged as a result of a continuous process.

Amorality. We affirm that moral values derive their source from human experience. Ethics is autonomous and situational, needing no theological or ideological sanction.

Socialistic One-World Government. We deplore the division of humankind on nationalistic grounds. We have reached a turning point in human history where the best option is to transcend the limits of national sovereignty and to move toward the building of a world community in which all sectors of the human family can participate. We recommend an international system of taxation. The world community must renounce the resort to violence and force as a method of solving international disputes. Was is obsolete.

The Clash of Worldviews. While there is an obvious clash of worldviews of, for example, the socialist/communist and the capitalist, there is a clash of worldviews on perhaps the more basic of issues, from which lesser issues may evolve. These “more basic” issues could include the following: Why are we here? What is the meaning and purpose of life? Is there a difference between right and wrong? Is there a God?

Aware that Judeo-Christian values were central to the nation’s founding and aware of the present rise of secular humanism in America, author David Noebel describes the present warring factions: “On one side is clearly the Christian worldview. On the other side are five other worldviews: Islam, Secular Humanism, Marxism, New Ageism and Postmodernism. While these five worldviews don’t agree in every detail, they unanimously concur on one point: their opposition to Christianity.”

Socialism/Communism and Personal Character. It is interesting to note that the dangers of socialism in today’s America were recognized, believe it or not, way back in the 1830s by the remarkably prescient Alexis de Tocqueville, the French social scientist, in his classic work, Democracy in America. He warned that our democracy is vulnerable to a kind of despotism that “is directly opposed to the genius of commerce and the pursuits of industry . . .He said further that this despotism can adversely affect the very character of man: “ . . .it seeks to keep them [mankind] in perpetual childhood . . .” (emphasis added)

Black author Shelby Steele reiterates the point about “perpetual childhood” made by Tocqueville when he comments:

By accepting the idea that government is somehow going to take over the responsibility that only we can take, we relinquish authority ourselves. We become childlike, and our families began to fall to pieces. Welfare – which promised a subsistence living for the rest of your days for doing absolutely nothing – provided a perfect incentive to not get married, yet still have babies. Then the babies will be state wards, and their babies, and so forth.

And so the goodwill of America finally did to us what slavery and segregation failed to do. It destroyed our family, destroyed our character . . .

Politically, black America is almost socialistic. There’s a feeling that the government is the vehicle that’s going to lift us to equality, and without government, we’ll never make it. Black America has suffered from this delusion since the 1960s . . .No matter who the Democratic nominee is, they get 90% of the black vote in every single election.

Elbert Guillory, the black state senator from Louisiana who switched a few months ago from the Democrat Party to the Republican Party, agrees with Steele when he (Guillory) says: “But the left [socialists] is only concerned with one thing – control. Programs such as welfare, food stamps, these programs aren’t designed to lift black Americans out of poverty, they were always intended as a mechanism for politicians to control the black community . . .The idea that blacks, or anyone for that matter, need the government to get ahead in life is despicable. Our communities are just as poor as they’ve always been. Our schools continue to fail children. Our prisons are filled with young black men who should be at home being fathers. Our self-initiative and our self-reliance have been sacrificed in exchange for allegiance to our overseers who control us by making us dependent on them.”

The Dependency Problem. Through the food-stamp program and other such programs, the Obama administration has created a growing class of dependents – of all ethnic backgrounds. It’s a Democrat strategy that hasn’t changed much since Franklin D. Roosevelt attempted to use the New Deal to make his party a permanent majority. But unlike to current president, FDR realized this dependence strategy should have limits. Said FDR: “The lessons of history,” he cautioned in his 1935 State of the Union speech, “confirmed by the evidence immediately before me show conclusively that continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit.” While Democrats revere FDR as a party icon, few would say those words today.

Socialism/Communism and the Nuclear Family. By now, the reader has seen statistics ducumenting the disintegration of the family. George Will, in a recent op-ed piece, reports that today, “41% of American children are born to unmarried women, including nearly 1⁄2 of first births, 53% of Hispanic children, and 72% of African-American children.”

While the high rate of illegitimate children can be explained to a some extent as a consequence of eroded religious influence and a lowering of values, it should be noted that with both communism and socialism, there is a tenet of positive belief that the traditional family with parents responsible for raising their children should be abandoned.

In regard to communist ideology in particular, author Richard Weikert, in his essay titled, Marx, Engles, and the Abolition of the Family, contends that, “The relationships they [Marx, Engles] envisaged for a communist society would have little or no resemblance to the family as it existed in 19th century Europe or indeed anywhere else. Thus it is certainly appropriate to define their position as the abolition of the family . . .He [Marx] also proposed that children be raised communally, so society would be one, big, harmonious family . . .”

The reader will recall that Hillary Clinton, a number of years ago, when writing a book about families, used the title, “It Takes a Village,” thereby suggesting a concept similar to the one advocated by Marx. Columnist Phillis Schafley centends “’Village’ is the progressives’ metaphor for the theory that the government, speaking

through judges, psychologists, school personnel and social workers, should supervise child rearing, rather than parents.”

And more recently, Melissa Harris-Perry, a host on a PMSNBC talk-show and a professor at Tulane University, gave her views, widely publicized, on family structure. Instead of using a metaphor as did Hillary Clinton, she spoke about as directly as one could speak. In a sense, her views reflect those of a large and growing segment of our society, and represent a verbal description of the beliefs and practices of many leftists. She said the following in April of this year:

We have never invested as much in public education as we should have because we’ve always had a kind of a private notion of children. Your kid is yours and totally your responsibility. We haven’t had a very collective notion of these are our children. So part of it is we have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents, or kids belong to their families, and recognize that kids belong to whole communities. Once it’s everybody’s responsibility and not just the households, we make better investments.

Can the Two Americas be Reconciled? Columnist Dennis Prager believes the divisions in the nation constitute a death struggle for which there can be no reconciliation. He believed at one time that, although the left and right had serious policy differences, they each had the same vision for America. But no more. He believes that “right and left do not want the same America.” He illustrates his point by presenting the following:

•   The left wants America to look as much like Western European countries as possible. The left want Europe’s quasi-pacifism, cradle-to-grave socialism, egalitarianism and secularization. The right wants none of those values.
•   The left feels that if people want to be religious, they should do so at home and in their houses of prayer, but never try to inject their religious values into society. The right wants America to continue to be what it has always been – a Judeo-Christian society with a largely secular government that is not indifferent to religion.
•   The left prefers to identify as citizens of the world. The left fears nationalism. The right identifies first as citizens of America.
•   The left subscribes to the French Revolution whose guiding principles were “Liberty, Equality Fraternity.” The right subscribes to the American formula, “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” (equality is not mentioned) The right rejects the French Revolution and does not hold Western Europe as a model.
•   The left envisions an egalitarian society. The right does not. The left values equality above other values because it yearns for an America in which all people have similar amounts of material possessions. The right values equality in opportunity and strongly believes that all people are created equal.JIM DEMINT: WE WON’T BACK DOWN ON OBAMACAREIn an op-ed piece appearing in a recent issue of the Wall Street Journal, Jim DeMint, a former Senator from South Carolina and the current president of the Heritage Foundation, provided the reason why his organization and certain other organizations chose to fight the implementation of ObamaCare – even when it appeared the fight was for a lost cause. Placing emphasis on what is best for the country – not best for the party – he says the reason is simple: “to protect the American people from the effects of this law.” He says the fight will continue.

  In his response, he cites reports of the stunning premium increases Americans will have to endure. (Americans, by now, are familiar with these reports.) But, in addition, he makes the case that, contrary to government reports, the costs of ObamaCare will not fall, but will rise. In support of his claim, he cites past unreliable predictions by the government of future costs:

•   Nearly 50 years ago, at the time of Medicare’s enactment, it was projected that the federal government would spend $9 billion on Part A hospital services in 1990. Actual spending that year totaled $67 billion – an increase of 644% compared with initial estimates.
•   Government officials originally projected that Medicare Part B physician services would require “federal appropriations of about $500 million a year from general tax revenues. Last year, the federal outlay for that program was $163.8 billion – overshooting the original estimate by more that 4,400%.
•   Given this track record, the Congressional Budget Office’s projection that ObamaCare will cost only $200 billion a decade from now seems far fetched.

Demint also responds to the contention that “elections have consequences,” and that, therefore, somehow, the fight

against ObamaCare may not be justified. He makes 3 points in that regard:

•   ObamaCare was not the central fight in 2012, much to the disappointment of conservatives . . .exit polls confirmed that the economy, not health care, was the top issue.
•   Americans shouldn’t have to wait three more years for Congress to give them some relief from this law . . .Full legislative repeal may not be possible while President Obama remains in office, but delaying implementation by withholding funds from a law that is proven to be unfair, unworkable, and unaffordable is a reasonable and necessary fight.
•   Forget the consultants, the pundits and the pollsters; good policy is good politics. If the Republicans had not fought ObamaCare, the compromise would have been over the budget sequester. Instead, they have retained the sequester and for the past three months ObamaCare and its failings have been front and center in national debate.STANDING UP FOR TED CRUZLynn Woolley, columnist and talk-show host, makes a spirited, combative defense of Ted Cruz. Going on the attack, Woolley contends that the “last 3 losing Republican presidential candidates were wimps!” He then cites as evidence presidential candidate John McCain’s throw-in-the towel statement made at a town-hall meeting when he said, “He [Obama] is a decent person and a person you do not have to be scared [of] as president of the United States.”

  Continuing his attack, Woolley comments on Romney’s campaign. As the 2012 election was in full throttle, the biggest scandal of President Obama’s first term – the incompetence and misleading statements surrounding the attack at Benghazi – was breaking. But during the course of the debate in which Mr. Romney was given the perfect opportunity to make Benghazi an important – and potentially deciding issue – he faltered.

  Ted Cruz was reviled by many from his own party when he engaged in a pseudo-filibuster for a cause he must have known was not winnable. But Woollsey also notes that, “When State Senator Wendy Davis fought a losing battle for her pet cause – abortion – she was hailed as a heroine and urged to run for governor of Texas.”

  NOTES ON THE PASSING SCENE
  (Some random observations on this crazy world in which we live)

  Doggett Cannot Vote for Himself. Democrat U. S. Representative Lloyd Doggett can’t vote for himself because he does not live in the district he represents, hence he cannot vote for himself. Currently, Doggett lives in Congressional District 25, but represents CD 35. This seeming anomaly comes about because there is nothing in the U. S. Constitution or federal law requiring a House member to live in the district he or she represents. In Doggett’s case this situation came about because of recent redistricting acts. Reportedly, it is not unusual at a given time for there to be a few House members who live in districts they don’t represent.

  Republican Incumbents Already Have Primary Challengers. In the wake of some of the present internecine struggles within the Republican Party, several Republican incumbents with high name recognition now have primary opponents. Some of them are:

•   South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham, has drawn state Sen. Lee Bright, businesswoman Nancy Mace and businessman Richard Cash as challengers
•   Tennessee’s Lamar Alexander will face state Rep. Joe Carr
•   Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell will face businessman Matt Bevin
•   Kansas’ Pat Roberts will face tea party activist Milton Wolf, a doctor and distant cousin of Pres. Obama
•   Wyoming’s Michael B. Enzi will face Liz Cheney, daughter of the former vice president
•   Mississippi’s Thad Cochran will face state Sen. Chris McDanielAmerica Continues Growing Belief it is Headed in Wrong Direction. A September 24 poll from Bloomberg showed that 68% of Americans – two out of every three – say that the country is heading in the wrong direction. This is the most in two years and a substantial increase just since the first of the the year. In addition, it appears that more Americans are blaming Pres. Obama as the cause, as those holding an unfavorable view of the president now outnumber those with a favorable view for the first time since his election in 2008.Reports of Global Warming Undermined. While environmentalists have been citing the melting ice in the Arctic as evidence of global warming, there has been little reporting that sea ice in the Antarctic set a record high in August.

Sequestration “Cuts.” Former Congressman Ron Paul points out that “most of the supposedly

“draconian’ sequestration cuts [from 2011 Budget Control Act] are not even cuts; instead, they are ‘reductions in the planned rate of spending.’ This is where Congress increases spending but by less than originally planned – yet they claim to cut spending.”