PARR Newsletter ARGU Vol.7 No.4

AMERICAN RIGHTS GUARDIAN UPDATE
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VOLUME 7 NUMBER 4 FW 2002 Bald Eagle

The Only Printed Voice of Opposition to Federal Government Indian Policy in Wisconsin.
Published by Protect Americans' Rights & Resources to maintain an informed membership.

Glaring Headlines exclaim that the Wisconsin State Lottery is slowly declining. The yearly property tax relief has dropped from over $200, when the lottery first started to considerably less than $100 - ($76 in Milwaukee). A whole litany of reasons for this decline was cited. Of course the Ultra liberal Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel neglected to mention that the Indian Casinos in Wisconsin which are raking in phenomenal amounts of money, most of which has no bearing on tax relief, are contributing considerably to the demise of the State Lottery. The state cannot provide entertainment, cut rate drinks, food, lodging, etc., to entice gamblers. When the state Lottery, which was enacted for the sole purpose of providing property tax relief, fails the word Lottery stands a good chance of disappearing from the state constitution. Lottery; that is the word that Federal Judge Barbara Crabb used to force Indian gambling on Wisconsin. Consider This: If the Wisconsin State Lottery goes belly up, would there be another referendum to remove the word Lottery from the state constitution? If this happens it surely would behoove the tribes to have 30 year contracts with the state to enable them to continue gambling. Oh! So that's why the tribes want 30 year compacts!!!

Gambling Laws Ignored
(by Bob Manzke)      Appears that State & Federal laws prohibiting the expansion of gambling in Wisconsin are completely ignored. The State lottery which was the genesis of modern gambling, and the basis for all gambling in Wisconsin, is being run out of business by Indian Tribes.
     The expansion is wide open, all stops are pulled out. The fact that a poll in Wausau showed the people of Wausau are against an Indian casino the Ho-Chunk Tribe is still proceeding. The italic reference to the Federal Indian Gaming law of 1987 in the following is taken from the State of Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau booklet titled (The Evolution of Legalized Gambling in Wisconsin)
Expansion of Gaming to Other Tribal Lands: Generally, Class III gaming may not be conducted on trust lands acquired after October 17, 1988, unless the land was adjacent to the boundaries of the reservation as they existed on that date. However, subject to approval by the governor, gaming on newly acquired land that is noncontiguous to a reservation may be authorized by the Secretary of the Interior, provided it is deemed in the best interest of the tribe and not detrimental to the surrounding community or nearby tribal gaming operations.
     This expansion is definitely detrimental to the surrounding community; it will contribute to running the State Lottery into
the ground.
     The following, which refers to a state referendum, is also taken out of the above mentioned document. Apparently this doesn't even exist in the eyes the Tribes, and public officials whose agenda is more campaign finance MONEY to allow them to stay in power, and to hell with the public trust.
     1993 Constitutional Amendment Limits Gambling: Governor Thompson called a special session in June 1992 to consider amending the constitution to permanently exclude casino style gambling from inclusion in the state lottery. After considerable debate and a series of legislative hearings held around the state, the following question was presented to the voters:
     Gambling expansion prohibited. Shall article IV of the constitution be revised to clarify that all forms of gambling are prohibited except bingo, raffles, pari-mutuel on track betting and the current state run lottery and to assure that the state will not conduct prohibited forms of gambling as part of the state run lottery?
On April 6, 1993, the amendment was ratified by a vote of 623,987 to 435,180.
     Not everyone is ignoring the laws, the wishes and needs of the taxpaying public. Apparently people are waking up to the fact that there is more in this state than Indians and their paid lackeys. Read on:
     A lawsuit brought by Dairyland Greyhound Park, seeking to stop Gov. Scott McCallum from renewing tribal gaming compacts for 17 casinos state-wide, was given new life Thursday by a state appeals court.
     The court overturned liberal Dane County Circuit Judge John Albert's dismissal of the suit in April - a move Albert based on the failure of the suit to name the tribes as parties in the action.
     Albert ruled that the tribes' economic interests in maintaining the compacts and their inability to protect themselves from a future judgment in Dairyland's favor was the controlling factor in the dismissal.
     But the appeals court, in a decision written by Judge David Deininger, said the interest of the public in having the issue decided tips the scales in favor of allowing the lawsuit to proceed.
     Dairyland's lawsuit, filed last October, argues that a 1993 amendment to the state constitution, approved by referendum, outlaws casino gambling. The amendment clarified that all forms of gaming are prohibited in the state except bingo, raffles, pari-mutuel on track betting and the state operated lottery. The state has maintained that the casinos are operating on legitimate extensions of compacts signed a decade ago.
     "Our suit simply asks that the law be followed," Berger said. "The voters spoke, and our constitution was amended. We cannot allow the government to ignore the will of the people."
PARR Ed Note: The above article was written just before the November 5th election, so…the following will probably sound like sour grapes and to a certain extent I suppose it is. Because of the recent winning of the Governor's Mansion by Navajo Jim Doyle, PARR sees an Indian Casino in every crossroads town in Wisconsin.
     As far as property tax relief is concerned; forget it! With Elizabeth Burmaster (Doyle’s close confidant) and Secretary of Public Instruction, who feels that the State should collect all earned income and put the taxpayers on an allowance, by his side, together they will march arm in arm to defeat their first priority evil, the property tax cap. And of course to hell with us old folks who are having more and more trouble paying our property tax. No I don't think you can look to Mr. Doyle for help keeping the state lottery functioning as a property tax reduction tool. In all fairness Mr. Doyle did make a campaign promise not to raise taxes. It all depends, if removing the property tax cap can be spun as not raising taxes, we've had it. §§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§
Issue Item Indian Claim: The mole lake Indian tribe claims their casino is paying 20% of net income to the state. They consider this excessive already, and they are opposed to an increase.
Rebuttal: Corporations in either Las Vegas or Atlantic City, which are not Indian run, pays a normal corporate tax of approximately 50% on their net income. Therefore, the Indian casinos would only pay 40% as much as a regular corporation.
Indian Claim: The Indians must pay benefits and wages. An increase in the % rate required payment would decrease their ability to pay benefits and wages.
Rebuttal: First, the Atlantic City and Las Vegas casinos must also pay wages and benefits while paying 50% tax on net income. Second the Indians state contributions are based on net income. What are they doing with this money? Has any one seen a complete accounting of their profit distributions??
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Indians are at the door
(by John Fulton Lewis)
America's Farmers Had Best Be Aware! There is a battle going on in Congress right now that, no matter what the outcome, may have a great deal to do with the future of farms, farming and the civil and property rights of landowners in the United States. It is such a serious threat to those rights, and to many mostly rural communities throughout the nation, that two liberal Democrat Senators from Connecticut are leading the fight to halt and take stock of the danger.
     Joseph Lieberman and Christopher Dodd, responding to angry pressure and backlash opposition to granting more Indian claims to reservation rights and gambling casino licenses, are begging Congress to stop all further federal designations of tribes until there is a sweeping investigation and study of the way the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) considers and processes such claims. Dodd and Lieberman suggest that Connecticut citizens are on the warpath because tribes, reservations and casinos are seriously disrupting the normal pace of life in many small towns, hurting small business and impoverishing too many customers infected with the gambling virus.
    The reservations also harass adjacent private property with claims for more land. Even Senate Indian Affairs Committee leaders Senator Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) and Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-Colorado), himself an Indian, admit the current situation on reservation designation and casino license petitions is "out of control" though they seem disinclined to stop it. On September 19, the AP reported from Stratford, CT, that the Golden Hill Paugussett tribe, pursuing a demand for a casino license, was so incensed by the Dodd Lieberman effort to halt tribal designations for a year that the tribe's attorney said they would file claims to take back hundreds of thousands of acres of Connecticut land, which they claim was theirs in the 17th Century. Said one observer: "that may be very, very close to statutory blackmail of the people of Connecticut and two U.S. Senators."
     The undeniable lure of enormous gambling casino profits, which Native American Indians are realizing at dozens of reservations across the country, and the political power that tribes now wield in funding election campaigns, have stimulated a wild proliferation of petitions for federal designation of tribal legitimacy and the granting of casino licenses that will bypass state prohibitions or restraints on such gaming operations.
     By September 15, 2002, there were 222 petitions pending nationwide. If approved by Congress, the White House and the Department of Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs, all of which have a tradition of reluctance to reject such claims, added Indian tribal demands for private lands could tie up landowners in costly litigation or punishing settlements.
     Before going further, please note that in Delmarva and New Jersey Farmer country, there are 11 such petitions on file in Virginia, four in New Jersey, two in Maryland and one in Delaware. Many requests for tribal designations and approval of gambling licenses are in states that have historically banned casino activities. Taxpayers, for example, have been battling, for the better part of a decade, the claims of Oneida and Seneca tribal leaders for the return of 250,000 acres of lands in northern New York State that have placed scores of farms and even some suburban towns at risk of being subject to tribal authority rather than state and federal protection. In fact, the Oneida have already acquired a number of farms in two New York counties, converting them to golf courses or simply letting them lie fallow. In the process, the Indian takeover has meant the destruction of forests, wetlands, farm crops for the food supply and the local county property tax base.
     The first two casino licenses were granted by New York, early in September: one in Niagara Falls and one next door in Buffalo. Why two so close together? There's already one on the Canadian side of the Falls! To finally settle the Oneida Seneca land claims, Governor George Pataki has pledged up to a billion dollars to the Indian claimants, half to be derived, he hopes, from Uncle Sam's treasury and all U.S. taxpayers, and half from New Yorkers' wallets! He has also assured them they will get as much as 35,000 acres more land, as well, and a likely okay of six more casino licenses they have requested, IF they drop the initial land demands. Incidentally, New York is a state that has long resisted such gambling. In California, where a number of casinos are already flourishing, 53 petitions for new tribal designations have been filed. Governor Gray Davis, fighting for a second term, has publicly encouraged tribes to seek designation and build more casinos.
     One that was recently granted was to a last surviving member of an officially extinct tribe who didn't even know she was part Indian. She had five kids and an adult relative. With the aid of a smart attorney who has turned Indian casino license acquisitions into an art form, she was granted part of the tribe's old, abandoned, reservation land on which an elaborate gambling establishment has now been built to rake in millions. What makes all of this especially frightening is a matter, which ought to trouble campaign finance reformers such as those two Connecticut Senators now desperately trying to stem the tide of Indian reservation claims and more casinos Dodd and Lieberman.
     During the last year of the Clinton Administration and in the first months of the Bush Presidency, before enactment of Senator John McCain's so called reform act, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) determined that America's Indian tribes should not be subject to federal rules limiting political campaign contributions. McCain even admitted in an interview with the Boston Globe that potentially, every one of the 550 plus tribes presently designated could contribute up to $500,000 each to candidates for national office and, of course, there are fewer limits on contributions to state and local office candidates.
     McCain did nothing about the matter. Considering the millions of dollars now flowing from casinos, it has become hard for politicians to resist the expansion demands of tribal leaders for more reservation land and more casino licenses.
     Investigative reporters for the Baltimore Sun, the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal are now scouring the countryside to assess the extent of threats and harm to landowners, rural communities and small towns from Native American tribal claims. They are also reportedly examining some of the mysterious and unpublicized forces that may be providing legal assistance, funding and management in the processing of claims and the building of casinos. Many reservation Indians complain they have gotten neither jobs nor a share of the profits from casinos. A tribal gaming enterprise in Texas that was recently closed down by the courts was found to have given 800 of some 900 jobs in their operation to outsiders with no claim to Indian blood though that tribe's poverty level is extremely high. Those who always appear to profit are the tribal councilors. Investigative reporters need to ask critical questions about just who is benefiting from casino operations: Preliminary evidence has indicated that contracts for advance funding and construction of some Indian gaming facilities, and for their management thereafter, is with front end foreign investors in Southeast Asia, firms long connected with gambling interests in Atlantic City, Las Vegas, Reno and some, possibly, with links to whatever passes for the modern day equivalent of the Mafia. Certainly, farmers and rural landowners generally may want to be on the lookout for Indians at their door. §§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§
Issue Item The "Stella" awards rank up there with the Darwin awards. Stella Liebeck is the 81 year old lady who spilled coffee on herself and sued McDonalds. This case inspired an annual award - The "Stella" Award - for the most frivolous lawsuits in the U.S.
The following are this year's candidates:
1. January 2000: Kathleen Robertson of Austin Texas was awarded $780,000 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store. The owners of the store were
understandably surprised at the verdict, considering the misbehaving little bastard was Ms. Robertson's son.
2. June 1998: A 19 year old Carl Truman of Los Angeles won $74,000 and medical expenses when his neighbor ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Mr. Truman apparently didn't notice there was someone at the wheel of the car, when he was trying to steal his neighbor's hubcaps.
3. October 1998: A Terrence Dickson of Bristol, Pennsylvania was leaving a house he had just finished robbing by way of the garage. He was not able to get the garage door to go up since the automatic door opener was malfunctioning. He couldn't reenter the house because the door connecting the house and garage locked when he pulled it shut. The family was on vacation. Mr. Dickson found himself locked in the garage for eight days. He subsisted on a case of Pepsi he found, and a large bag of dry dog food. He sued the homeowner's insurance claiming the situation caused him undue mental anguish. The jury agreed to the tune of half a million dollars.
4. October 1999: Jerry Williams of Little Rock, Arkansas was awarded $14,500 and medical expenses after being bitten on the buttocks by his next door neighbor's beagle. The beagle was on a chain in its owner's fenced yard. The award was less than sought because the jury felt the dog might have been just a little provoked at the time by Mr. Williams who was shooting it repeatedly with a pellet gun.
5. May 2000: A Philadelphia restaurant was ordered to pay Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania $113,500 after she slipped on a soft drink and broke her coccyx (tailbone). The beverage was on the floor because Ms. Carson threw it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument.
6. December 1997: Kara Walton of Claymont, Delaware successfully sued the owner of a night club in a neighboring city when she fell from the bathroom window to the floor and knocked out her two front teeth. This occurred while Ms Walton was trying to sneak through the window in the ladies room to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge. She was awarded $12,000 and dental expenses.
And the winner is: Mr. Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City. In November 2000 Mr. Grazinski purchased a brand new 32 foot Winnebago motor home. On his first trip home, having joined the freeway, he set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the drivers seat to go into the back and make himself a cup of coffee. Not surprisingly the Winnie left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Mr. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not advising him in the handbook that he couldn't actually do this. He was awarded $1,750,000 plus a new Winnie. (Winnebago actually changed their handbooks on the back of this court case, just in case there are any other complete morons buying their vehicles.) §§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§
Non-Indian
(By Ken Keyser) I am outraged every time I read about the insensitivity of the Non Indians of this country, manifested in the use Indian names for cities, rivers, schools, sports teams, etc.
    Well if these poor red-skins are so thin that non derogatory use of an Indian name is insensitive and warrants   change, then perhaps they should change all the Indian names that are based on the French.
    The phrase Non-Indian is not only insensitive but in my estimation is down right derogatory. To me Non-Indian means that I am something short of a first class citizen. This phrase means that the Indians are the elite, and I am something short of that status.
    I am a white man or a Caucasian of Dutch ancestry, and I abhor being called by the demeaning title Non-Indian. I bet the outcry would be immediate and overwhelming if all people of color were called nonwhite. I don't like being talked-down-to as an inferior to the manufactured Indian that I support with my tax dollars.
PARR Ed Note: You can thank your own federal government, for furthering this dilemma. This stigma has been attached to the tax paying citizens of this nation by the efforts of the Indian staffed and run Bureau of Indian Affairs, with the blessing of superiors of The Department of the Interior. With the efforts of these two branches of the United States Government the Indian Industry really flourishes. Therefore, we the “Non Indians” who pay the taxes have no voice in Washington D.C.
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New Element Discovered Researchers have recently discovered the heaviest element known to science: Administratium.
     Administratium has one neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons and 111 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.
     These 312 particles are held together by a force called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of particles called peons.
     Since administratium has no electrons, it is inert. However, it can be detected because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A minute amount of administratium causes one reaction to take more than four days to complete when it would normally take less than one second.
     Administratium has a normal half life of three years. It does not decay but, instead, undergoes a reorganization, in which a number of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons and assistant deputy neutrons exchange places. In fact, administratium's mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization causes some morons to become neutrons, forming new isodopes. This characteristic of moron transformation leads some scientists to speculate that administratium is formed
whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as "critical morass".
You will know it when you see it.
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No Navajo
(Parts taken From a UPI article) PHOENIX, Nov. 12 -- The legal dispute over an Arizona restaurant's rule banning employees from speaking Navajo on the job drew the participation of a national organization that advocates English as the official language of the United States. The suit was the first filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to involve a Native American language.
    The EEOC office in Phoenix filed a lawsuit in late September after two employees of RD's drive in, located in Page, Ariz., were fired for refusing to sign a pledge to speak only English while at work. The EEOC stated at the time that the situation was "a form of national origin discrimination" that violated the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
    Pro English said it would offer its legal assistance to the owners of a drive in located in rural northern Arizona that ran afoul of the EEOC for prohibiting its Native American workers from speaking Navajo while on duty. ”It is not illegal for an employer to ask its employees to speak a language on the job that the employer can understand, and the EEOC knows it.”
     The owners of RD's, Richard and Shauna Kidman, argued that the dispute was not limited to the language barrier. They said that the rule was implemented because the Navajo conversations among employees sometimes turned offensive both to Navajo speaking customers and other employees who primarily speak English. In the summer of 2000, some of the Navajo employees complained to the Kidmans that other workers were treating them rudely by talking about them in the Navajo language and by using offensive language in Navajo," the family explained on its Web site. "The Kidmans therefore had to do something to solve the problem for their workers, nearly all of whom were Navajo." The couple said all of their Navajo workers were able to speak English, and they posted the "English only" work rules after concluding from the EEOC's own Web site that English could be required if there was a valid business purpose.
     Citing a 1993 decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that held that the language spoken by an employee did not legally define their country of origin, the 1993 ruling in the case, Garcia vs. Spun Steak, ruled in the employer's favor on the case, which was nearly identical to the Kidmans' predicament after determining that the English only rule was necessary to promote workplace safety and put an end to the alleged intimidation by Spanish speaking workers against African American and Asian American coworkers who did not speak Spanish, it appears that "The EEOC's Phoenix office is attempting to bully this family into signing a consent agreement contrary to settled law by threatening the family owned business and the Kidmans themselves with financial ruin through protracted litigation."
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Issue Item Three couples, an elderly couple, a middle aged couple and a young newlywed couple wanted to join a church. The pastor said, "We have special requirements for new parishioners. You must abstain from having sex for two weeks."
     The couples agreed and came back at the end of two weeks; the pastor went to the elderly couple and asked, "Were you able to abstain from sex for the two weeks?" The old man replied, “No problem at all, Pastor. Congratulations! Welcome to the church!" said the pastor.
     The pastor went to the middle aged couple and asked, "Well, were you able to abstain from sex for the two weeks?"
The man replied, "The first week was not too bad. The second week I had to sleep on the couch for a couple of nights but, yes, we made it." "Congratulations! Welcome to the church!" said the pastor.
     The pastor then went to the newlywed couple and asked, "Well, were you able to abstain from sex for two weeks?" "No Pastor, the young man replied sadly. We were not able to go without sex for the two weeks," "What happened?" Inquired the pastor. "My wife was reaching for a can of paint on the top shelf and dropped it. When she bent over to pick it up, I was overcome with lust and took advantage of her right there." "You understand, of course, this means you will not be welcome in our church," stated the pastor. "We know," said the young man, "We're not welcome at Home Depot anymore either."
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Tribal Baiting?
(By Greg Graunke) We have been inundated with loads of complaints about the ridiculous enforcement of the deer baiting & feeding laws. Horror stories about people being threatened with arrest for leaving a few kernels of corn to feed geese summering on a nearby lake, or bird feeders being in violation because, sunflower seeds fall to the ground from the activity of birds. Secretary Bob Manzke and I have discussed this at depth. Bob believes that the baiting law discriminates against older hunters who are somewhat disabled, because they can't go cross country, and their best opportunity to bag a deer would be to shoot one over a bait pile located near access.
    This has become quite a controversial issue so we were wondering where the tribes fit into this picture, so I wrote a letter to Tom Hauge Director Bureau of Wildlife Management Wisconsin, asking him if the Indians had to abide with the baiting/feeding laws. Following is his answer:
    Dear Mr. Graunke: Thank you for your recent letter to the Department regarding Tribal baiting regulations. I hope that this response to your inquiry will help answer your questions pertaining to Chippewa Treaty Rights and the Department's current Emergency Rules which prohibit baiting and feeding. Discussions with the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission have taken place and communications continue as we begin to draft a permanent rule to replace the Department's Emergency Rule dealing with baiting and feeding.
     To date, the Tribes have not agreed to prohibit baiting in the off reservation code. However, the Tribes do very little baiting in the course of exercising their off reservation treaty rights and we do not see this as a significant issue. Tribal members who engage in feeding of wild animals, which is unrelated to hunting, at off reservation locations will be subject to State law.
     With regards to baiting and feeding on the reservation, the Lac du Flambeau band has passed a rule banning baiting on their reservation. No other tribes have to date implemented similar bans. Again, very little baiting takes place either on or off the reservation. The Lac du Flambeau band has also banned on reservation feeding as it did with baiting. Thus far, no other tribes have banned feeding deer on their lands.
     The tribes realize the importance of eliminating chronic wasting disease in the deer herd and will continue to be involved in discussions as permanent rules are put in place. Please let me know if you have any further questions pertaining to this or other subjects in which I may be able to provide clarification. Sincerely, Tom Hauge Director Bureau of Wildlife Management.
      I was displeased with the "Indians don't do much baiting" answer so I wrote the following reply.
Dear Director Tom Hague:
     Thank you for your letter of 10/27 file code: B-1055. You informed us that if we have any questions regarding Indian deer baiting to contact you and this letter is in that regard. You state that very little baiting takes place either on or off the reservation and you. "do not see this as a significant issue" The local media has repeatedly stated that your department has banned all bating and feeding and see those methods as very destructive to the deer herd because of CWD, and all baiting or feeding has been dealt with large fines and loss of privileges no matter the amount of bait or feed. Your above statement seems to contradict your department policy, and can we now regard small amounts of bait or feed to be all right? We would hope that your department can enforce the emergency laws equally for everyone and not make special rules for point nine percent of one percent of the population!  PARR was under the impression that this emergency law was for everyone but just like spearing it is only the law for some of us?????
EQUALLY Yours,
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Human Evil
(By David C. Stolinsy Taken From Newsmax.com) Are you a "control freak"? Do your family and friends complain that you always need to be in control? This is a common psychological problem with which many of us have to deal. It causes difficulties in personal life. But consider what political and social positions a "control freak" might take. Obviously, extremes of both Left and Right yearn to be in control. Indeed, they try to control virtually every aspect of life. The underlying motivation of totalitarianism may be an insatiable urge to be in control.
     But what about the less extreme? What about ordinary people with impractical ideas? Might an urge to be in control – or at least to seem in control – play an important role in their thinking? To take a common example, what do we do when we hear that someone has been murdered, robbed or raped? Often the first question we ask is "Where did it happen?" Certainly we want to know if a criminal is loose near us. But beyond that, we want to avoid feeling afraid. We want to tell ourselves, "I don't go to 'bad' parts of town late at night. I don't hang out in bars or seedy motels. I don't carry large amounts of cash. I don't drive a flashy car. I don't dress like a slut. That couldn't happen to me. I'm safe."   Avoiding unsafe behavior is wise. To the extent that we learn from others' mistakes, we are being intelligent. But if we convince ourselves that we are perfectly safe if we avoid certain behaviors, we are being stupid. We are blaming the victim in order to give ourselves a false sense of security. We are, in effect, denying the existence of the most dangerous thing in the world – human evil. Not second-hand smoke, pesticides, industrial pollution, SUVs or global warming. Not poverty, racism or guns. Human evil.
     It's frightening to realize that there are people who want to do evil things. It's frightening to think that there are people who rob the poor, carjack ordinary cars, rape elderly women, harm children, or murder people with whom they have no quarrel. Just because they want to. Because they enjoy it. Because they have no moral restraints.
     Looking evil in the face is difficult. No one wants to be frightened and disgusted by looking at something horribly ugly. But we must. Otherwise, we deceive ourselves into believing that we can control everything by avoiding risky behavior and thinking good thoughts. We fool ourselves into thinking that if we avoid fat, eat "organic" food, don't smoke, and jog three miles a day, we will live forever. And if we don't expose children to second-hand smoke or peanuts, and if we remove swings and monkey bars from playgrounds, our kids will always be healthy and safe.
     We delude ourselves that we will all be safe and happy if only we ban guns, reduce pesticide use, build no new power plants or dams, ban SUVs, fund more programs for the poor, treat women like men, and force airport screeners to search elderly ladies from Omaha instead of young men from the Middle East. Not one of these actions affects the main cause of human suffering in any way. Not one affects human evil.
     The key delusion underlying all these unsuccessful attempts to explain anti-social behavior is that something we did caused the trouble. So if only we stop doing it, all will be well. That is, we are in control. But even though we live in the richest, most powerful nation on earth, there are limits to what we can do. We can barely control ourselves, much less the whole world. To a considerable degree, we are not in control.
     To religious people, this is neither surprising nor frightening. They know that God is in control, so they don't have to be. They know that if they do their best, He will do the rest. They don't think that they are the center of the universe. They value life and health, of course, but they value other things, too – goodness, for example. But secular people have no such assurance. They strive to make this world perfectly safe and risk free, because they don't believe in the next world. Life and health are their supreme goals. They can't blame evil for human suffering – they don't believe in evil. When President Bush called terrorist states an "axis of evil," they objected not because they don't believe these states are evil, but because they don't believe anything is evil.
     The closest they come to calling some action evil is to say "That's sick." People who do evil may also be sick. The sickness may be treated by psychiatry, though to date little success has been achieved in treating anti-social personality disorder and almost no success in treating pedophilia. Surely research should continue. But I must admit that I don't look forward to effective behavior control – it's sure to be misused.
     We can use what help science gives. But science is the search for knowledge of the physical universe. It has nothing to say about the moral universe. It can describe precisely the trajectory of a bullet, but it can't tell us whether murder is wrong. If we want answers to the ultimate questions, we must look elsewhere. And that's a big "if." It may be painful or even frightening, but we must see reality for what it is. Most criminals hurt people because they enjoy hurting people. Not because of guns, poverty, racism, social injustice, or anything else we can control. Criminals hurt people because they lack good values and have bad values. It's that simple, and that complex.
     Liberals often feel the need to be in control, but the irony is that they reject the one course that might actually give them some control. They oppose all efforts to restore ethical values to our schools. They object whether these values are taught on a religious or a secular basis. They oppose behavior codes, dress codes, abstinence education, and even posting the Ten Commandments. Then they are shocked – shocked! – when value free education produces value free graduates. And, of course, value free people do things that make liberals feel even more frightened and out of control. And so it goes.
     Non religious people often ignore the effects of religion, both good and bad. They tend to see everything in economic terms. Marx's "Communist Manifesto" was published in 1848, and almost everything he predicted proved false. Yet liberals and leftists (if there's a difference any more) still share his viewpoint. Many liberals see 9-11 in economic terms. They assume that people hate us not because of religious fanaticism and a desire to murder "infidels." They narcissistically assume that everyone is like them – interested only in material things. So they assume 9-11 must have been about oil. They think we attacked Afghanistan not to remove a brutal regime that nurtured the terrorists who attacked us, but merely to build a pipeline. How materialistic. How egocentric. How false.
    People crash airliners into office towers not because of what we did wrong, but because of who we are. We are free; they are totalitarians. We respect women's rights; they see women as property, even in the next world. (Remember the 72 virgins?) We are democratic; they have contempt for ordinary people. We advocate religious pluralism; they spit on it. All these issues dwarf economics, but not in the liberal mind. All these issues reflect fundamental differences on the question of good and evil. This time, it's not the economy, stupid. In a final spasm of attempted control, some people go so far as to swallow and regurgitate the lies of our enemies. They whisper that al-Qaeda may – may – have carried out the attack on 9-11, but it was really the "hidden hand" of the CIA pulling the strings – for oil, of course. That is, we attacked ourselves. The illusion of control is preserved, even in the face of devastating evidence to the contrary.
    In order to act effectively, we need to see things clearly, and not with our vision clouded by obsolete and discredited theories that try to explain everything on the basis of economics. These theories give only the illusion of control. If you doubt this, look at the Soviet Union. It imploded despite attempts to control everything. Or rather, it imploded because of attempts to control everything. After the film "Titanic" caused a sensation, and "Titanic" books and memorabilia were on sale everywhere, I saw a man with a T-shirt that made me laugh out loud. The legend on the shirt said "The ship sank. Get over it." The Marxist-leftist-liberal ship sank some time ago. Get over it.
    You can learn a lot from movies. As the police chief in the film "Fargo" said to the murderer, "There's more to life than money, you know." I enjoyed that film, partly because I was born in Fargo. And the message is a valuable one. There's more to life than economics. For starters, there's good and evil. Dr. Stolinsky is retired after 25 years of teaching in medical school. He writes from Los Angeles on political and social issues. He may be contacted at dcstolinsky@prodigy.net.
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Elitists Hypocrites The London Sun today blasted the "sickening champagne and caviar lifestyle being enjoyed by Earth Summit delegates."
    Just like at the so called World Food Summit, "They are gorging on mountains of lobster, oysters and filet steak at the Johannesburg conference - aimed at ending FAMINE," raged the newspaper. And they wash it all down with the finest champagnes and wines, of course. "As the summit began yesterday, desperate kids in nearby shanty towns queued for water at standpipes.
    Desmond Morgan, head chef of the five star Michelangelo Hotel hosting the environment destroying Earth Summit bigwigs, described the mountains of gourmet food he is whipping up and declared, "Money is no object." While a few miles away South Africans are starving in slums, Morgan bragged of the delicacies the delegates would feed on, including: 5,000 oysters, more than 1,000 pounds of lobster and other shellfish, buckets of caviar, 450 pounds of salmon and 220 pounds of "a tasty South African fish called kingclip." Piles of politically incorrect paté de foie gras, more than 2 tons of steak and chicken breasts and more than 1,000 pounds of bacon and sausages. Naturally, taxpayers of the participating nations, including the U.S. and Great Britain, are picking up the tab for the $53 million extravaganza.
    The Sun reported, "A new kitchen has been especially created for world leaders, including the Sultan of Brunei, who has his own cooks and tasters." Apparently the elitist mainstream media either see nothing wrong with this kind of hypocrisy or don't want you to know bad things about their beloved United Nations.
    "The 60,000 summit delegates from 182 countries are expected to drink 80,000 bottles of mineral water during the conference," said the Sun. "Yet each day 6,000 African children die from diseases caused by contaminated water
   Mike Childs, a spokesman for Friends of the Earth, fumed: “hundreds of trees have been felled around the conference center so fleets of limousines will have unhindered access.”
Your PARR Staff Wishes you a Very Merry and Blessed Christmas and a Happy Prosperous New Year!

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