THE FOUNDATION: GOVERNMENT

“[A] wise and frugal government… shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.” —Thomas Jefferson

GOVERNMENT

“There’s absolutely no mystery why our greatest complaints are in the arena of government-delivered services and the fewest in market-delivered services. In the market, there are the ruthless forces of profit, loss and bankruptcy that make producers accountable to us. In the arena of government-delivered services, there’s no such accountability… Our health care system is hampered by government intervention, and the solution is not more government intervention but less… Before we buy into single-payer health care systems like Canada’s and the United Kingdom’s, we might want to do a bit of research. The Vancouver, British Columbia-based Fraser Institute annually publishes ‘Waiting Your Turn.’ Its 2006 edition gives waiting times, by treatments, from a person’s referral by a general practitioner to treatment by a specialist. The shortest waiting time was for oncology (4.9 weeks). The longest waiting time was for orthopedic surgery (40.3 weeks), followed by plastic surgery (35.4 weeks) and neurosurgery (31.7 weeks). As reported in the June 28 National Center for Policy Analysis’ ‘Daily Policy Digest,’ Britain’s Department of Health recently acknowledged that one in eight patients waits more than a year for surgery. France’s failed health care system resulted in the deaths of 13,000 people, mostly of dehydration, during the heat spell of 2003. Hospitals stopped answering the phones, and ambulance attendants told people to fend for themselves. I don’t think most Americans would like more socialized medicine in our country.” —Walter Williams

FAMILY

“Despite what our Democratic Party leadership would have us believe, the increasing costs and inaccessibility of health care is the result of excessive government interference in this market as opposed to not enough. You’d think that our representatives in Washington would want to fix these distortions so that health care could be delivered more freely and hence more cheaply, imaginatively and abundantly. But this doesn’t sit well with the political-power-loving class in Washington. It would rather do what the Senate Finance Committee has just done: Ignore the real problems and then expand government even more to try and cover those who fall through the cracks. As a result, we get Medicaid for middle-class America and children getting health care from different suppliers than their parents. Brilliant! [President] Bush offered a creative proposal in his State of the Union address this year that would start addressing the problem at its root. It puts a $15,000 ceiling on the deductibility of employer health coverage, and offers a $15,000 tax deduction to every American family to purchase health care. This would change current economics that favor plans delivered through employers rather than purchased individually. Yet, Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., who chairs the health subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee, declared the president’s proposal dead on arrival and said no hearings would be held. The proposal alone might not deliver gold-plated plans to working-class Americans. But it certainly would increase the accessibility of basic coverage.” —Star Parker

CULTURE

“Any sane fellow knows you don’t drink the water when you’re visiting Mexico or many other countries on two-thirds of the planet. You don’t drink it because it’s polluted and poisoned and all kinds of little living entities are swimming around waiting to attack your innards. But in America, the water is pure. Virtually every home in every part of the country has a kitchen tap that offers an unlimited supply of it. You pull the tap and out it comes—safe, clean, rigorously regulated water. Our tap water is a reflection of our country—a reflection of how incredibly successful the American experiment has been. It’s also a reflection of how lazy and ignorant and unaware so many Americans have become—because we take our water for granted. Until recently, we demanded ‘better’ water—the stuff that comes in bottles. And now that is bad for us, too. The whole bottled-water concept makes me wonder how many other things we’re taking for granted. Our freedom? In many places around the world, the government runs everything (Cuba, for instance) and the people have nothing—BECAUSE the government runs everything. Yet some Americans are eager to dismantle the system that created our wealth because they think the government can do better—the same people who used to think bottled water was better.” —Tom Purcell

LIBERTY

“Americans like exercising plenty of other rights more than their right to vote. The right to speak your mind, own property, associate with whomever you like, be compensated for the fruits of your labor: these and other rights are plainly more dear to Americans than the right to pull a lever every two or four years. Obviously, Americans would care if anyone proposed taking away their right to vote. But as a matter of common sense, voting is less important to us than those rights and liberties that make our God-given right to pursue happiness possible. Ultimately, voting is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Lest we forget, democracy shorn of these other rights is no less tyrannical than dictatorial rule.” —Jonah Goldberg

INSIGHT

“I want to remind you that success in life is based on hard slogging. There will be periods when discouragement is great and upsetting, and the antidote for this is calmness and fortitude and a modest yet firm belief in your competence. Be sure that your priorities are in order so that you can proceed in a logical manner, and be ever mindful that nothing will take the place of persistence.” —Walter Annenberg

THE GIPPER

“It’s time to clean house. Clean out the privileges and perks. Clean out the arrogance and the big egos. Clean out the scandals, the corner-cutting and the foot-dragging. What kind of job do you think they’ve done during all those years they’ve been running the Congress?… Now, just imagine what they would do if they controlled the executive branch, too!… But now we have arrived, as we always do, at the moment of truth—the serious business of selecting a president. Now is the time for choosing.” —Ronald Reagan

OPINION IN BRIEF

“In America, public opinion is in no mood for war with Iran. In Washington, Congress is focused on finding the most politically advantageous way to lose in Iraq. In Europe, they’ve already psychologically accepted the Iranian nuclear umbrella. In the Western world, where talks are not the means to the end but an end in themselves, we find it hard despite the evidence of 30 years to accept that Iran talks the talk and walks the walk. Once it goes nuclear, do you think there will be fewer fatwas on writers, stonings of homosexuals, kidnappings in international waters, forced confessions of American hostages and bankrolling of terror groups worldwide?…[The] latest hostages are part of a decades-old pattern of behavior. The longer it goes without being stopped, the worse it will be.” —Mark Steyn

RE: THE LEFT

“Just as our troops are fighting the terrorists in Iraq so we don’t have to face them here at home, I watched the Democratic Party presidential debate [last] Monday so you wouldn’t need to let those egregious people into your own living rooms. (Although, obviously, our troops in Iraq face deadly duty, while I only face deadly dull duty.) But I did learn a few things. For the first time Monday, CNN provided us with sustained close-up shots of Sen. John Edwards’ haircut, and I can now understand why he paid between $400-$1,200 a cut. At middle range, it looks deceptively like your average $18 strip-mall haircut. And it seems to look the same from the left side of his face. But the close up from his right side is a revelation. Girding the long side of his part is an extraordinary spring-like wedge of hair running from front to back. And though bouncy, every hair remains in place—even during vigorous head shaking and bobbing. This gives his entire hairstyle a lively, youthful look. Most middle-aged men’s hair just sits on the head like a wet rag. Admittedly, the bouncy wedge does look a little flouncy when viewed from the candidate’s front right. But from any other angle and from all distances other than close up, it simply gives his entire visage a healthy, animated look. Well worth a thousand bucks a crack—at least in his part of the two Americas.” —Tony Blankley

POLITICAL FUTURES

“Most Americans are not systematic political thinkers and many don’t have rock-solid loyalty to either political party. These are the people who will determine the outcome of the country’s most pressing debates. Millions of them have supported conservatives in the past and could be persuaded to do so again. But let’s not pretend it will be an easy task. William F. Buckley Jr. described conservatism as ‘the politics of reality,’ not the politics of wishful thinking.” —W. James Antle III

FOR THE RECORD

“The Secure Fence Act, passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush on Oct. 26, requires the government to achieve and maintain operational control over the entire international land and maritime borders of the United States within 18 months. Lawmakers allocated $1.2 billion to the project. We’re nine months in. Does anyone believe we’re halfway to the goal of controlling our borders?… Last year, President Bush deployed 6,000 National Guard personnel to assist federal authorities with security on the U.S. -Mexico border. According to data released this month by the Customs and Border Protection Agency, apprehensions during the period from Oct. 1 through June 30 were down 24 percent compared to the same period a year ago—682,468 versus 894,496. Given evidence of a border security initiative that’s actually in place and working, what did the president do? He announced that the National Guard deployment would be cut in half by Sept. 1. Since the last supposed immigration reform in 1986, successive Congresses and administrations headed by both Republicans and Democrats have failed to deliver on enforcement provisions… But a porous border and lax immigration enforcement are no longer an economic or domestic political issue. Since Sept. 11, 2001, they have become a national security issue.” —Jonathan Gurwitz

SELECT READER COMMENTS

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“Of all the comments in praise of Arpaio, very few come from the county where Arpaio is sheriff. Why? Most of The Patriot’s readers are conservative, and those conservatives who do more than just read the newspaper dislike Arpaio.” —Scottsdale, Arizona

Editor’s Reply: Uh, we would think the most important “comments from the county where Arpaio is Sheriff,” are in the form of ballots every four years—those who continue to re-elect Sheriff Joe!

“I live in Maricopa County, Arizona and am very proud of the fact that we have a sheriff that has the backbone to run a prison as it should be run, not as a country club. If the rest of the country would do the same we would not have as much crime as we do.” —Scottsdale, Arizona

“All my contacts from the Midwest to the Left Coast, have been sending me letters of envy that we have the famous Joe Arpaio here in AZ and the rest of the nation is deprived of his success!” —Glendale, Arizona

“The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office is developing a system designed to keep illegal immigrants from visiting county jail inmates. There will be background checks for all who come to visit prisoners, this system will eliminate all illegals from visiting Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s jail. Those who can’t prove citizenship get no second visit and could be arrested. Sheriff Joe Arpaio says, ‘I run the jail. I say who gets in!’ Wish we had him here in New Orleans to stop our turnstile jail.” —River Ridge, Louisiana

“Sheriff Joe for President!” —Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania