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New York Times columnist praises Heritage plan

September 7, 2007 | By Nathaniel Ward

 
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A Heritage Foundation proposal to reform America’s “social contract” by turning away from big government and towards civil society institutions provides “the perfect vision for 21st-century America,” writes New York Times columnist David Brooks (link for Times Select subscribers only).

The proposal from Heritage vice president Stuart Butler isn’t a return to “the laissez-faire social contract of the 19th century,” Brooks writes. “But neither is it the centralized, big bureaucracy contract of the 20th century. It’s a contract that envisions society as a dense but flexible web of social networks.”

Butler explained his principles for restoring the American social contract in a lecture delivered earlier this year. He argued that American society has traditionally met its obligations to the needy through “the extensive network of civil society institutions, including family, church, and neighborhood association” which have helped individuals return to self-sufficiency.

Find out how liberalism undermined this order and how Butler proposes to get back on track.

John Bolton on fixing the U.N.

The United Nations suffers from “a kind of entitlement mentality” and ignores American reform efforts, former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton said yesterday at The Heritage Foundation.

America should consider new ways of funding the United Nations to hold the corrupt body accountable for its failure to uphold human rights and American interests, he suggested. He proposed a system of “purely voluntary contributions” so that the United States pays only what it wishes to, instead of being billed each year by the U.N.

Ambassador John Bolton speaks to Heritage Thursday.Right now, the U.N. assesses America for 22 percent of its general funding and 27 percent of its peacekeeping funding. But 97 member countries (constituting a majority vote in the General Assembly) pay less than one third of one percent of the budget.

(In a new paper, Brett Schaefer of Heritage’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom explains why a proposal to increase America’s funding of U.N. peacekeeping is a bad idea. Schaefer also tackles, separately, the disastrous first year of the U.N.’s Human Rights Council.)

Take our poll: Should America spend so much taxpayer money funding the United Nations?

Read more about Bolton’s remarks, including his comments about the “stealth” U.N. tax.

Judge blocks enforcement tool

Siding with the ACLU, a federal judge last week blocked the government from telling employers if their workers’ Social Security numbers don’t match official records.

The program would help enforce immigration law by identifying illegal immigrants using false numbers. It would also allow legitimate workers to correct their information and protect against identity theft.

Heritage national security expert James Carafano says the lawsuit should serve as a warning to those who favor a “comprehensive” amnesty approach to immigration reform.

The lawsuit also offers Congress a cautionary lesson on what would have happened if a comprehensive immigration and border security bill that put amnesty first had passed. Enforcement measures would have been litigated extensively, while amnesty would have allowed millions to benefit from having violated U.S. laws, undermining any notion that the government could or would enforce immigration laws in the future.

Heritage wins another immigration victory

National security expert James Carafano notes that the Bush administration has once again adopted a Heritage immigration reform proposal.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement is following Heritage recommendations and expanding its collaboration with state and local law enforcement officials. Two such “287G” programs existed in 2005, and by the end of this year there will be 32. Further, a new office has been created to coordinate these efforts, as Heritage suggested.

“Heritage has long championed this program,” Carafano says.

Congress: School choice for me, not for you

Many liberals in Congress are vehement opponents of allowing parents to choose the best schools for their children. Yet many of these same Congressmen exercise school choice themselves, and send their children to private schools.

“For example,” writes Heritage education expert Evan Feinberg, “Senators Edward Kennedy (D–MA) and Hillary Clinton (D–NY) have been outspoken opponents of school choice initiatives even though both have sent their children to private schools.”

A Heritage Foundation study updated for 2007 finds that 37 percent of Representatives and 45 percent of Senators send their children to private schools. This is “almost four times the rate of the general population,” Feinberg reports.

In other news

  • A federal judge has ruled parts of the Patriot Act unconstitutional and ordered that the FBI halt its use of “national security letters” to request customer data from Internet firms.
  • German officials have disrupted a radical Islamic terrorist plot to attack targets believed to include Ramstein Air Base and Frankfurt Airport.
  • In good news for free speech, the Federal Election Commission has said it will not treat online political discussion on blogs as campaign contributions. Under the campaign finance “reform” laws, bureaucrats could arbitrarily designate certain speech to be prohibited in-kind contributions.
  • The Air Force has fired a commander and launched an investigation after nuclear weapons were mistakenly flown hundreds of miles.
  • “Britain is considering whether to permit research using animal eggs to create human stem cells,” the Associated Press reports, “a process that tests the ethical boundaries of cutting-edge scientific research.”
  • New York City has opened a taxpayer-funded Arabic-language school. The Khalil Gibran International Academy’s original headmistress resigned several weeks before classes began after being linked to a group making T-shirts bearing an “intifada” slogan.
  • A Colorado Springs elementary school has banned the game of tag because “it causes a lot of conflict.” Other area schools have also banned the classic game in favor of lower-contact recreation. Perhaps it’s no wonder that so many adults today behave like children when our children are treated like infants.

Coming up at Heritage

To attend these or any other Heritage Foundation events, RSVP at Heritage’s events website. Or you can watch these events live online at Heritage.org. All times are Eastern.

Nathaniel Ward is the Editor of MyHeritage.org—a website for members and supporters of The Heritage Foundation.