Once Again, Plants Over People

In 1957, Secretary of the Interior Fred Seaton opened up 20 million acres on the North Slope of Alaska for commercial oil and gas exploration and drilling. This was in addition to the already established Naval Petroleum Reserve (NPR) which included another 23 million acres. Even with oil plentiful and cheap, Washington recognized that the United States needed to strive for energy independence, and the cold, barren and relatively uninhabited tundra of Alaska must have seemed like a great place to drill.

Today, 48 years later, not one well has been sunk.

Getting to the roots of this madness, and why the vast oil deposits in this God-forsaken wasteland have not been pumped, it is necessary to go back to 1960. Just three years after opening up the area for exploration, Seaton designated 8.9 million acres of coastal plain and northeastern mountains as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, nearly halving the original lease area. Then in 1980, in the middle of a world-wide oil shortage, the Democratic-controlled Congress voted to make all but 1.5 million acres of coastal plain bordering the Beaufort Sea known as 1002 Area off-limits to exploration, designating the rest as wilderness area and renaming it the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. With just 5% of the original acreage now available for petroleum removal, Congress commissioned the Department of the Interior to prepare a report on the oil and gas potential in this coastal plain, and the effect that oil development would have on the region's "natural resources". The legislation also required that any oil and gas leasing from ANWR would require authorization from Congress.

In 1987, a controversial and highly criticized report was finally released in the form of a Legislative Environmental Impact Statement. Predictably, the report concluded that oil development and production in 1002 Area would have major effects on the region's Porcupine caribou herd and musk oxen, and that "widespread, long-term change in habitat availability or quality which would modify natural abundance or distribution of species". The study also indicated that major restrictions on the "subsistence activities" of the nearby Kaktovik residents were likely to be expected.

The report's conclusions were so apparently flawed that Interior Secretary Donald Hodel dismissed it, and recommended full scale development on the coastal plain, authorizing an oil and gas-leasing program that would avoid unnecessary adverse effects on the environment.

Since then, Democratic activists have filibustered any legislation allowing such programs, and some liberal Republicans, as well, have caved to extreme environmentalist pressure. All of this while science and common sense indicate that drilling for oil in a small slice of this desolate no man's land would have little or no impact on the environment at all.

While legislators cave in to radical environmental objections that have more to do with a disdain for progress and capitalism and less a sincere concern for the little animals and plants, ANWR holds enough potential oil reserves to replace our daily imports from Saudi Arabia for 30 years. According to the U.S. Department of Geologic Survey, ANWR's 1002 Area is the nation's single greatest onshore oil reserve--greater than any other state, including Texas and Louisiana. The USGS estimates that the area contains a mean expected value of 10.4 billion barrels of recoverable oil, and at peak could produce nearly 1.4 million barrels of oil per day. In comparison, Texas produces just more than one million barrels per day, California just less than a million per day, and Louisiana produces 200,000 barrels per day. There may even be substantially more oil than that, considering the USGS underestimated the Prudhoe Bay reserves by nearly 5 billion barrels!

According to a recent report from the U.S. House Resources Committee, any drilling in ANWR would be subject to the most stringent environmental protection requirements ever applied to Federal energy production. Each new lease would require a separate Environmental Impact Statement, and be subject to strict regulations that would limit exploration to winter months, prohibit the building of roads or permanent buildings, require all pipe-lines and transfer equipment to have little or negligible effect on wildlife, and ensure compliance with all applicable air, water, and waste management standards.

Ultimately, the area to be explored is not even the entirety of 1.5 million acres, but only 2000 acres, less than 0.01 of the total ANWR area. In comparison, the average size of a farm in South Dakota is 1400 acres, and Washington's Dulles Airport covers 11,000 acres!

Opposition to further exploration in the area seems to be confined to a small group of lower 48 legislators and the left-wing environmental groups that pay their bills. In Alaska, those who support support drilling in ANWR outnumber those who do not by a margin of 75-23 %. In fact, the Eskimo village of Kaktovik, closest to the proposed drilling area and the same village mentioned in the critical 1987 report, supports exploration by an even greater margin, 78-9%. The Alaska Federation of Natives, which represents 80,000 Eskimos, adopted a resolution in 1995 supporting ANWR drilling and calling it a "critically important economic opportunity for Alaska natives". Eskimos actually own nearly 92,000 acress within ANWR, but are not able to lease exploration rights until Congress opens up the Federal area of the Reserve. With such overwhelming local support, it is hard to understand how a few stubborn elitists in Washington can be so strident in their opposition. Once again, clearly a case of liberal preference for animals and plants over human beings, and this time at the expense of the Native population.

In case anyone feels trepidation for the caribou, Alaskan wildlife experts have concluded that the Central Arctic Herd has more than tripled in size since similar drilling began in Prudhoe Bay, in less than 30 years. Apparently, caribou are more inclined to make little caribous when they have a nice, warm oil pipe to snuggle against.

With President Bush and a Republican Congress looking to lessen our oil dependence on the volatile Middle East and South America, there is a good chance drilling may commence soon. Republicans have threatened to attach the drilling legislation to the Omnibus Budget Bill, which cannot be filibustered by Democratic extremists, and requires only a majority vote in the Republican-controlled House and Senate.

Whether these radical environmental activists like it or not, America's fuel of necessity is oil, and there are few technologies that will take its place in the near future. The day may come, hopefully sooner than later, when an alternate energy source can be identified that could replace oil, but such an eventuality is many years away. In the meantime, liberals pump gasoline into their cars, just like the rest of us.

As world oil prices reach to staggering levels, and with America in the precarious position of having to rely heavily on Islamic dictators for our supply, it only makes sense that we find oil where we can, within our own borders. President Bush and the Republicans are realists, and know that America's great economy must have oil to run. Those who would stand in the way of more oil independence do not have America's best interests at heart.

But then, they never do.

The Least Among Us

Unless there is a last minute intervention from Florida's Legislature or Congress, Terri Schiavo will stop being fed on Friday, and within days will be starved to death.

Those who would kill her, former husband Michael Schiavo and his lawyers, say that Terri does not want to live, and that she is trapped in a useless body with no hope of living a productive life. She will die because of a single comment to her husband, never repeated to another or written down. They claim she told her husband, once, in private, that she would not wish to linger on life support or in a comatose state. Every court that has heard this claim has accepted it, and those who wish to keep Terri alive have exhausted every legal avenue to no avail. Hearsay evidence, which would not be accepted in any trial court, or before any other probate judge, will be used to justify her slow and painful death.

But Terri is not on life support, and she is certainly not in a fully comatose state. From the pictures I have seen, and from testimony in court from her parents and specialists hired to defend her, she is aware of her surroundings, able to display emotion, able to feel pain, and responds to her environment. She seems to recognize familiar faces and people, especially her parents, and reacts differently to strangers. She orients to noises and activities in her room, and shows an anticipatory awareness of her schedule during the day. The only life support she requires is tube feeding, since her husband has never permitted therapy that might allow her to eat. Still, the courts and her killers maintain that she is in a "persistent vegetative state" and therefore of little value to herself or the world.

Her condition seems very familiar to me, and I am deeply troubled by this, because, you see, as a teacher in a high school class for those with severe handicaps, what the courts and lawyers call "persistent vegetative state", I call students.

Everyday, I teach kids who are no less disabled than Terri. They come to our classroom from parents who love them no less than any parent with a non-disabled child. Their disabilities require us to feed them through tubes, and to change them, and to clean them, and to put them into wheelchairs and standers and walkers. They have severe cognitive retardation and physical disabilities, vision and hearing deficits that render them legally deaf and blind, and communication may only be with sounds or tears or laughter. We measure success in small increments, over years, and even the smallest progress is an occasion for great satisfaction. During the day, we provide them with opportunities to feel, and taste and communicate and play, and to be with other kids just like any kid. We teach them to make choices by touching objects or with eye-gaze, to indicate yes or no with a movement or a motion, to move themselves in a supported walker, and to continue the transition from tube feeding to oral feeding. We teach them to use the toilet, and to press switches to turn on a tape player, and to trigger recorded messages that allow them to speak to their peers, and many other things.

In return, they show us courage, and strength and perseverance. And everyday, I thank God for what I have, and hope that I can be half as brave as they are, and I know they teach us more than we could ever teach them.

At the end of the day, we send them home to moms and dads who greet them with hugs and kisses and love, who look into that troubled body and brain and see a child whose value goes beyond being "productive", and whose worth is not based on what they can do, but who they are.

I often wonder if I could do what these parents do, living with the sheer labor of support such a child requires, to the exclusion of all other hopes and dreams and selfish desires. We only have our students for the school day, and then we all go home to our families. They have them for the rest of the time. And the rest of their lives. Our problems seem inconsequential in comparison.

Before I began to teach such students fifteen years ago, I wondered how God could let this happen, because there did not seem to be a purpose for such tragedy in the plan of a merciful and loving God. But I know now, as surely as anything, that my students (and others like them) are a test, and how we treat them determines our very humanity. Jesus Christ promised that how we treat the least among us will be how he remembers us. I hope that some of what I do everyday will please Him.

I do not know what will happen to Terri Schiavo. I pray that she will be saved. However, I cannot help but feel the weight of a great national test pressing down upon the shoulders of this country, as we begin to treat those deemed unproductive as disposable.

And, I cannot help but wonder if my students are next.

Clinton's Last Scene

According to Howard Fineman, Newsweek's resident Clinton apologist and synchophant, Bill Clinton is now "beloved" by America. Somehow, in just over four years, Fineman honestly believes this impeached, disgraced, and utterly classless hill-billy has been transformed into America's Pope John Paul.

But puppy love is blinding, and Fineman has never really been able to see the truth about the former president. Discussing Clinton on Chris Matthews' "Hardball", Fineman acted once again like a smitten school girl, just back from the supermarket with the latest copy of Tiger Beat, and predictably, Matthews was not much better. The only things missing were the pink heart pillows and nail polish.

They, of course, are not alone in the media world. Katie Couric, for starters, has never even tried to disguise the hero-worship, as well as an evident but thoroughly unfathomable sexual attraction to Clinton. During interviews, Couric would lean in so close to Clinton, she might as well have been sitting on his lap, her perky little face frozen in an expression of longing and awe like the gawky freshman dancing with the senior Homecoming king.

Fineman, like all romantics, sees what he wishes to see. During Clinton's disastrous eight years, Fineman never saw failed domestic policies, dangerous international appeasement, or rank administration corruption. He certainly could never bring himself to confront Clinton's dark and creepy personal behavior, or the fact that the Presidency itself was horribly sullied by this Ozark narcissist. Like the brow-beaten victim in an abusive relationship, Fineman was always there to defend Clinton at every opportunity, and deflect the blame to others, usually right-leaning Republicans who just never could see what a great guy Billy really was, or how smart he was, or how he just wanted the best for everybody, after all.

Now, with the passage of a few short years, he believes Clinton has become a "beloved" figure, whose enemies no longer can muster the passion to hate him. "The sense exists, perhaps grows more vivid" writes Fineman, "that Bill Clinton somehow embodies us all". But once again, Fineman's own passion for his amour eternel leads to false conclusions.

To appreciate why Fineman has always missed the point, it is necessary to understand that Clinton's national political life has always been a grand off-Broadway production, heavy on the special effects and light on the character development. His dramatic opening scene, when he emerged young and vibrant from a hick state as a long shot underdog, was met with audience titters of intrigue. Later when he ran an unexpectedly strong middle-ground campaign, most in the audience were not impressed, but those who were gave him a standing ovation and the presidency. As the curtain rose on his first term, with a slowly emerging boom-economy as a result of the last leading man, the audience felt comfortable, but carefully hesitant. As this scene progressed, audience members began to realize that a deeply flawed and pathetic character stood before them. After the intermission, with scandal after scandal playing out on the stage, many in the audience felt disgust, but many felt pangs of sympathy for the antagonist with the pouty lips and ready tear. As the play's climax approached, and the actor's complete moral and ethical corruption was dramatically exposed, most in the audience felt sick and repelled. As the crescendo of impeachment faded away, the audience began to filter out of the grand hall, leaving a shamed and often reviled player standing nearly alone in the spotlight. As his final scene nears, the actor desperately searches the empty seats for anyone who remembers his days of glory and world acclaim, but the audience has abandoned the Arkansan for a Texan. Today, at this stage in Clinton's performance piece, what Fineman sees is not a warm embracing love, but simply the final audience emotions in Clinton's uninterrupted one-man performance: pity for an actor once energetic and now ragged, once strong and now frail, once powerful and now deathly ill. Clinton, in spite of all the grandiose claims of talent and intellect and charisma, is simply the dying fox caught in the winter trap, bleeding his life inexorably away in near complete isolation.

Fineman is right about one thing. There is really nothing left of Clinton to hate anymore.

Social Security and Free Will

Social Security, the largest and most invasive Ponzi scheme the world has ever known , has done more to destroy the American ideals of self-sufficiency and personal responsibility than any other single factor, and the fear and hysteria surrounding the President's suggestion of personal retirement accounts is proof.

Somehow, America managed to grow and prosper for 150 years without such massive personal interference, ultimately becoming the most successful industrial nation in history. During most of this time, the concept that each person was responsible for themselves was a given. Even private charity was conditioned upon true need, with those unable to work or without family support deemed "worthy", and those simply unwilling to work deemed "unworthy". Even when charity was given, the social pressures to quickly move from dependency to self-sufficiency, and personal responsibility, were great and ever-present. There was some formalized public aid, and a few official government-paid "pensions", but most relief was provided at the local level by churches and private organizations, where it should have been. People were expected to do whatever was necessary to provide for themselves, and not expect their fellow citizens to provide for them.

Invariably, the supporters of wealth-redistribution, which is truly at the core of Social Security, claim that evolutionary conditions, such as populations moving from an agrarian to an industrialized society, required a re-evaluation of government's role in retirement and poverty. Using the Great Depression of 1929 as a catalyst and excuse, socialistic influences in Franklin Roosevelt's administration, including FDR himself, used the panic of unemployment and uncertainty to fundamentally change a century and a half of precedent, and shift the burden of personal accountability away from the individual and to the government itself. By requiring productive workers to fund the retirement of others, and collecting and funneling the money through the government, these socialists devised an ingenious way to financially enslave millions of Americans and introduce billions of untapped private resources into the public treasury to fund even more big-government programs at the same time.

When the Depression was ripping the wealth out of the stock market, and an army of underemployed and unemployed workers were unsure of tomorrow's paycheck, Social Security must have seemed like a grand idea. However, the program had little effect on personal economics during that critical time, and regular retirement checks did not actually start reaching Americans until the early 1940's. By that time, it was World War II, and not Social Security, that actually ended the depression. But it was too late. The program was already in place.

Because of this, objections to "privatization", no matter how limited, are based on pure power politics, as usual. Foundationally, Democrats (both then and now) love everything big government, and there is no bigger social program than Social Security. With billions of dollars flowing into the federal coffers annually, Democratic politicians are naturally inclined to defend it, since most Americans are held hostage to this government con-job. That makes every participating American a member of the dependent constituency, the core of Democratic support. Coupled with the Democratic tendency to view themselves as morally superior protectors of the unwashed masses, who are too ignorant and weak minded to make wise and informed decisions, Social Security represents the pinnacle of liberal philosophy.

Ironically, Social Security does not even provide much of a retirement, taking into consideration the amount of money it confiscates from every worker. The typical check is just over $1000, but many are far less. This is hardly an amount that will lead to a comfortable retirement lifestyle by itself. Under the present system, after laboring for a lifetime and contributing nearly 8% of gross earnings into Social Security and Medicare, and enduring a passed-on pay cut of nearly 8% to cover the employer's mandated contribution, the typical worker can look forward to functional poverty upon retirement. So much for compassion.

Most economists agree that given the same amount of Social Security deductions, placed into moderate risk, and even low risk stock and bond market investments, the typical investor would fare considerably better, beating Social Security by up to four times in return. But more importantly, the decisions would be made by the individual, and not the government, and would be paid for by private money, and not confiscatory taxation. In addition, where there is personal risk, there tends to be a greater degree of personal attention.

Today, with a rapidly growing stock market protected from much of the instability that contributed to the depression, and with numerous investment options available that safely yield far greater returns than Social Security's measly 2% even under the worst long-term conditions, this seems to be a program that has outlived any usefulness it may have had at one time. However, with most of America dependent on the federal government for the bulk of their retirement, and selfish-interest organizations like the American Association of Retired Persons simply front groups for the expansion of an expanding entitlement culture, there is really only one hope of beginning our recovery from the nanny state. Instead of looking for ways to prolong the death agony of an unsustainable program, Social Security should be dismantled completely. Sooner rather than later.

Of course, this would ultimately require workers to develop their own retirement plans, or for employers to offer several plans as a benefit of employment, from which a worker could choose. It would also require workers to educate themselves about these investment options, in order to make informed decisions about their own lives. Schools might need to take a few instructional hours in order to teach kids something that really matters: how to best provide for themselves through personal economic initiative and responsibility. President Bush calls this the "ownership society", but it is simply a return to the foundational principles of America that made our country productive beyond all others. That this concept could be attacked by a majority of Americans as unfeasible or unreasonable is an indication of how far liberal ideology has polluted our once strong and independent minds, and made many economic slaves of the state.

Safety nets and public largess should be reserved for those who are truly unable to care for themselves: the profoundly disabled, the seriously mentally ill, and those too young or too weak to pursue their own best interests. It should not be forced upon a strong working class because a few liberals think they are too stupid to take care of themselves, or because many people choose to make poor decisions, and then expect public money to clean up the mess. Human nature is to take the path of least resistance, and programs such as Social Security immorally rob human beings of their most important God-given right.

Free will.

Islamic Freedom's Founding Father

Almost overnight, the Islamic world is in the process of metamorphosis. Beginning with free elections in Afghanistan less than six months ago, and continuing with tomorrow's historic Saudi vote, there is the unmistakable feeling of positive momentum towards an evolution of liberty among Islamic peoples. This turn of events must be surprising, and a bit embarrassing, to those who have consistently maintained that Moslems were not interested in freedom, not willing to fight for it, and after years of despotism, unable to adapt to self-rule.

Try to tell that to the men and women of Afghanistan, who cast votes for their own leaders for the first time in history, or the Iraqis, who literally faced death and terrorist retribution in January's election, or the Palestinians who voted for the first time and elected a relative moderate apparently committed to peace with Israel. With each successive event, these vastly different peoples, with vastly different societies, have provided an example of strength for their Islamic brothers. During the last few days, tens of thousands have demonstrated in Lebanon against Syrian oppressors and for self-determination, and in Iran there is a hunger for democratic reforms to replace the totalitarian theocracy now in power. Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak has felt the pressure, and on Saturday called for a constitutional change that will allow multi-party elections for the first time.

Since most of the Islamic world has long been ruled by dictators with the ultimate power of life and death, it is understandable that a subjugated people were hesitant to take the first steps toward liberty by themselves. Most have been beaten down with tyrannical control, crushing poverty, and astounding ignorance. Most have never had the benefit of a diverse education, or even the opportunity of unfiltered access to other peoples, cultures, and religions. Western-style democracy, which we take for granted, has been quite unknown in the Moslem world, and often rejected by fanatical Islamic leaders as evil and Satanic. What was needed, and what finally came, was a catalyst for liberty.

What is truly amazing, and quite unique in history, is that the catalyst for these monumental events, and the inspiration for change, did not arise from within, but from without. This was not the doing of some great Arab leader, sick to death of tyranny and subjugation. Quite the contrary. The Islamic peoples looked and acted more like complacent slaves than free men with God-given rights, and had they waited for one of their own, this revolution might never have begun. This revolution's hero, and Founding Father, is not an Arab, or a Bedouin, or a Persian, or a member of any clan, or even a Moslem. He has never lived in any of the places now undergoing transformation, and has never touched the soil of most.

The Founding Father of Islamic freedom is George W. Bush.

Shamefully, many criticized the President for his belief that all men yearn for self determination. They dismissed the possibility of fundamental change in the Islamic world as naive, and claimed that Moslems did not want or need democracy. They claimed that factional differences between clans and cliques would not allow positive nationalism, or successful self-rule. They berated the idea that free and fair elections could be held so soon in Afghanistan and Iraq, and that the bloodshed would prevent all but a few from going to the polls. They were all wrong.

Only time will reveal how this will end. If the longing for liberty is within each man as a natural gift from his Creator, as our Founders believed, this will be only the beginning. No one should expect success too quickly or too easily. After all, there are hundreds of years of brutal regimes and destructive religious teachings to overcome. But the best antidote to the darkness of despotism and hopelessness is the light of freedom. In Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Iran, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere in the Islamic world, that light is beginning to shine.

If democracy does eventually spread and thrive, then it will have been George Bush, and not Mohammed, who has given the greatest gift to the Islamic world.