Death threats for challenging liberal orthodoxy
March 8, 2007 | By Nathaniel Ward
Liberalism has a virulent new strain of political correctness, Heritage’s Helle Dale writes in The Washington Times. “Challenge the belief that the Earth is warming dangerously due to human activity, or criticize any of its high priests, and the wrath of true believers will be visited upon you.”
A few weeks ago, a conservative organization in Tennessee, the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, published a study looking into the energy usage of former Vice President and environmental activist Al Gore. “As it turned out,” Dale explains, “the Gore mansion interestingly uses 20 times more electricity than the average American home.”
Liberals, though, could not stand to see their secular religion of environmentalism challenged—and they reacted strongly. Dale continues: “Little did the staff anticipate that by posting the facts of the Gore family’s bloated and certainly hypocritical energy consumption on their Web site, they would create an international firestorm, become the subject of death threats, vicious verbal abuse and almost see their Web site shut down because of the onslaught.”
Perhaps it says something about the weak intellectual and moral ground on which liberalism stands that its defenders are forced to resort to such tactics. Think about it for a minute. Does pointing out the environmental practices of radical environmentalism’s chief spokesman—facts that are in the public record, after all—really warrant death threats?
Four percent for freedom
“There’s rarely a downside to being strong,” Heritage Foundation President Ed Feulner writes in The Chicago Sun-Times. “But threats quickly emerge when a country is seen as too weak.”
This is such a universal axiom, Feulner explains, that it’s probably one of the few areas on which Osama bin Laden and Ronald Reagan would have agreed. “Both men understood one thing: Military weakness invites trouble.”
In order to remain strong into the 21st century and avoid a poorly-equipped “hollow force” like that after the Vietnam War, he writes, we must “adopt a ‘4 Percent for Freedom’ plan. That means our country should never spend less than 4 percent of GDP on defense.”
This plan, which Heritage Distinguished Fellow Jim Talent detailed in National Review, would allow America “to make sure our country remains safe and free for generations to come.”
Improving military health care
A recent media exposé revealed tremendous problems with the medical care given to active duty military personnel at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and other hospitals.
Two principles must guide Congress as it seeks to overcome this dreadful problem, Heritage Visiting Fellow Daniel Johnson writes. “First, America's fighting men and women who become war casualties should get the very best medical care. Second, the problem needs to be solved immediately.”
How to reduce America’s economic freedom
Congress recently voted to increase the minimum wage by 40 percent, a policy which would hurt the very people it is intended to help. A new Heritage paper points out another danger of a minimum wage increase: reduced ability to compete with the rest of the world economically.
Any nation that raises its minimum wage compromises its economic freedom score, as reflected in the Index of Economic Freedom. The proposed change could reduce America’s labor freedom score in the Index from 92 percent to 87 percent. America, now the fourth freest economy in the world, would drop to sixth place due to this single policy change.
You can read more about Heritage’s Index of Economic Freedom online.
In other news
- The White House announced it would veto liberal-backed legislation to withdraw American troops from Iraq by a fixed date in fall 2008. Though it is not the role of Congress to manage the troops in combat—the President is Commander in Chief under the Constitution—the liberal leadership tacked the provision onto a war-funding bill.
- Ali Rez Asgari, Iran’s former deputy defense minister, has defected to the West and is cooperating with Western intelligence officials. This is without a doubt good news.
- Congressional hearings into global warming were delayed a second time yesterday by snowfall in Washington.
- Former Rep. Michael Oxley (R-OH) has said he would have written the corporate governance law that bears his name differently if given a second chance. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 imposed onerous new red tape on businesses even while doing little to address the corporate governance problems it was intended to solve.
- In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the federal government hurriedly bought 145,000 trailers to serve as temporary housing for evacuees. It turns out, The Washington Post reports, the government not only overpaid for the trailers—many were purchased on no-bid contracts—but now they’re stuck with tens of thousands of the things that aren’t being used. Worse, because of government rules, they’re having a hard time selling them, even at 40 cents on the dollar. Maybe housing really isn’t the government’s strength.
- Sex-education classes in suburban Maryland will soon include a new segment on “sexual and gender identity,” though parents will be able to opt their children out of the program.
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.
- On Tuesday, March 13 at noon, author Fred Singer looks at scientific evidence for periodic swings in global temperature and how a cautious examination of the science suggests humans aren’t the main driver of the current warming trend.
- On Wednesday, Match 14 at noon, scholars Anthony Cordesman, Frederick Kagan and Kenneth Pollack will join Heritage’s Jim Phillips to discuss American policy in Iraq going forward.
Nathaniel Ward is the Editor of MyHeritage.org—a website for members and supporters of The Heritage Foundation.
