Reader Comments

Editor: I read your piece “Middle Way Iraq Victory” and agree.  Given the tribal mindset over there, federalism/autonomy has always been the answer, if there is one.  The country was drawn up without regard for these factions and their incompatibility.  They will continue killing each other nonstop unless they are either separated based on their differences or are governed by some strong man with dictatorial powers, someone they fear. The problem I see is the reality that the various factions are mixed together enough that any balkanization will result in purges within each locale.  Maybe all we can do is let them fight it out among themselves at the local level and try to minimize the genocide.Personally, I think we might have been better off to have replaced Saddam with another dictator, one we liked, and let him be something of a benevolent ruler.  This part of the world simply may not be capable of self government at this point. Best, WS

Editor: Thanks for your latest on Bush’s “middle way.” But unless it is merely a linguistic set of mirrors, his policy promises nothing but defeat by increments. George W. Bush is (sadly) more interested in his legacy than in the lives of Iraqis, and it shows. Admittedly, conservatives are torn, including your readers. It’s true all over town. No one can tell the truth without alienating half their donors. I note with interest how some of our longtime conservative friends have managed to put out monthly newsletters for four years without ever mentioning Iraq!! Keep the faith. CM

Editor: In regard to your “Middle Way Iraq Victory,” keep in mind that according to Phil Rushton who has studied these matters, the average IQ in Iraq is 85--hardly the stuff of a rational polity -- and also that the issue in Iraq is not al Qaida but rather the former regime elements in Iraq and Syria who are seeking power. The current deals with various Sunni tribes are temporary, not the stuff of nation building.  Jameson Campaigne

Editor: Thank you for the thoughtful and fact-filled piece "Sorry Science Reporting" by Alan Caruba. There are still many of us in mainstream America who understand that man's puny efforts to "control" the weather and the environment pale in the face of one eruption of a Mount St. Helens, much less what's happening on the surface of the sun. PLEASE keep reporting the truth, and we will do everything we can (while we're still ALLOWED to) to get the truth out to people who have been duped by the so-called media of our day. Keep those facts coming! Debbie Blackwelder

Editor: Regarding Jeff Crouere’s reference to Katrina and New Orleans’ problems, pray tell why can’t the State of Louisiana remove the debris from the City---why must the feds do it rather than leave them free to step up to the plate on other issues? I was in Cazumel Mexico after the hurricane and folks there---you know those lazy Mexicans--were proud of how much they had done to restore their island without outside help. What is going on here in the U.S.? Tim Sullivan

Editor: Mr. Justice Jackson’s opinion in the Youngstown case has become the touchstone in the current discussion of cases involving the vertical separation of powers. The Senate’s recent passage of ‘hate crimes’ legislation broadening the federal criminal civil rights statutes to include almost all questioned forcible arrests by state and local police suggests that less attention has been paid to his views on the horizontal separation of powers expressed in his opinion in the 1946 Screws case involving the beating of a black arrestee by a Southern sheriff and again in his lectures on the Supreme Court published in 1955: "If the Department of Justice must prosecute local officials, the F.B.I. must investigate them, and no local agency which is subject to federal investigation, inspection, and discipline is a free agency. I cannot say that our country could have no central police without becoming totalitarian, but I can say with great conviction that it cannot become totalitarian without a centralized national police...All that is necessary is to have a centralized national police competent to investigate all manner of offenses and then, in the parlance of the street, it will have enough on enough people, even if it does not elect to prosecute them, so that it will find no opposition to its policies. Even those who are supposed to supervise it are likely to fear it. I believe that the safeguard of our liberty lies in limiting any policing or investigative organization, first of all to a small number of strictly federal offenses and secondly to nonpolitical ones." This counts heavily against 'hate crimes' legislation empowering federal investigation and prosecution of local police after virtually every forcible arrest. George W. Liebmann, Baltimore

Editor: I love Human Events and am proud that they have published articles that I have occasionally submitted. In that mood, I might congratulate them on the terrific articles in their 1st October issue by Jerry Bowyer on the possible reasons for the collapsing price of NY Times stock and by Deborah Corey Barnes on the financial motivations behind Al Gore's global warming crusade. But I write instead to quibble--in the strongest possible way--about the headline of their interview with former Speaker Newt Gingrich: "Gingrich Lays Out Course for Conservatives for '08". Isn't this rather like the leftist publications and politicians that pretend to give good advice to their dim conservative opponents?  While Mr. Gingrich is a highly partisan Republican to whom great credit is due for the Republican congressional victory in the 1994 election, he has always been a wayward and confused conservative at best. On some fundamental issues, he is much worse--he is a committed opponent of core conservative principles and values. In particular, his beliefs and record on environmental issues have been disastrous for the conservative cause and for the constitutional rights and material wellbeing of millions of rural Americans. Mr. Gingrich was (and perhaps still is) a long-time member of the Sierra Club. Early in his years as Speaker, he blocked a vote on the floor of the House on a major reform of the Endangered Species Act that had overwhelming Republican and significant bi-partisan support. Since this harmed Republican electoral prospects, particularly in the intermountain West (and continues to do so), it suggests that Mr. Gingrich put his environmentalist commitments ahead of conservative principles and even ahead of his own partisan self interest. Mr. Gingrich has in recent years taken credit with his allies in the environmental pressure groups as the person who single-handedly saved the Endangered Species Act from reforms that would respect people's property rights.   Speaker Gingrich then created a process that gave then-Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) veto power over all environmental bills coming to the floor. Boehlert led a small rump group of liberal green Republicans who seldom voted with the conservative Republican majority on any important issues. The result was that all efforts to pass needed reforms of America's environmental laws were stymied while Mr. Gingrich was Speaker. More recently, he debated Senator John Kerry on global warming. It turned into a love-in because Gingrich agreed with nearly everything Kerry said.  He offered his usual concoction of "visionary" rhetoric about providing incentives to develop the whiz-bang new technology he loves, but also added, "I am not automatically saying that coercion and bureaucracy is not an answer." You can say that again. The whole point of global warming alarmism, like most environmental issues, is coercion and bureaucracy.  If the solution to global warming doesn't involve big government command-and-control, then it's not recognized as a solution.  And Mr. Gingrich must know that. On this issue as on most issues, he tries to escape confronting disagreements between the left and conservatives over fundamental principles by claiming that the real answer is to be found in new technologies administered by new technocracies that transcend these disagreements. This puts him in much the same position as those pathetic Republicans in the 1950s who promoted themselves to voters as more efficient operators of FDR's welfare state. If Mr. Gingrich's innumerable ideas and proposals are going to guide the conservative movement in the future, then please let me off the ship now before it sinks. Yours faithfully, Myron Ebell

Editor: "I read a piece by Dennis Avery in today's Minneapolis Star [also published in the 9/26/07 ConservativeBattleline]. Dennis expressed concern that 'organic farms may have concentrated themselves on steep hilly land that is prone to mudslides.' I have visited many farmers in the Upper Midwest and I can say without reservation that this assertion is incorrect. Their losses are not due to mudslides but to an incredible amount of rain that caused flash flooding over the entire region." (Rick, Minneapolis) [Mr. Avery responds] Unfortunately, Rick, 28 counties in your region are famous for mudslides, massive soil erosion and Black Blizzard dust clouds. The Upper Mississippi Loess Hills are unstable leftovers from the last Ice Age. During the Dust Bowl, they suffered 15 times as much erosion as they do today. Without careful farming they could start eroding again, triggered by an erosion event like last month's "thousand-year" rain. Organic farmers refuse to use no-till farming, and this is nearly criminal in the Loess Hills. Dr. Stanley Trimble, America's top soil erosion expert, says Loess Hills farmers cut their erosion by 95 percent after the Dust Bowl, using contour planting, more crop rotations, fencing off woodlots-and more recently, low-till farming.

Editor: "Dennis: to use a natural event such as an extreme rainfall to discount a type of farmer and farming system is beneath a respectful individual. Do you not think that no-till farmers in SE MN . . . experienced the same tragedy as the organic growers?" ( Tim, Minnesota) [Mr. Avery responds] Actually, Tim, they didn't, and that's the whole point I'm trying to make. Dr. Trimble made an emergency trip to the Loess Hills after the recent flood event, because the extreme storms are what start the erosion process, and advance it most rapidly. He found NO evidence of sediment movement in the no-till fields, even on steep slopes. He found massive evidence of erosion in the conventional fields. He didn't visit organic farms, but if Minnesota Extension is reporting widespread mudslides and soil erosion, that's a bad sign for farmers rejecting no-till. Dr. Steven Green of Arkansas State University led a recent study that severely tested no-till for erosion against both organic and conventional farmers. The no-till allowed one-fifth as much erosion as either of the other systems. The no-till advantage is especially great in heavy rainstorms. During this weather event, organic farming simply wasn't as soil-safe as no-till, and only 30% better than obsolete chisel tillage (still used by many organic farmers.) All the talk about organic farmers creating better soil health didn't make any difference to those raindrops.

Editor: "Organic farms use cover crops and compost to nurture the soils, and try not to expose them to erosion." ( Paul, Illinois) [Mr. Avery responds] The no-tillers create a zillion tiny dams in the soil surface with their crop residues. Water infiltration can double, while soil erosion is reduced by more than 90 percent. I thought organic was supposed to be more sustainable, not less.

Editor: "Your commentary falls on outraged ears. I will quietly and urgently work to counter your misinformation in my communities . . . ADM, ConAgra, Monsanto: These corporations are Enemies of liberty. (Jon, Harmony Valley contributor) [Mr. Avery responds] "Enemies of liberty"? None of those companies can force you to buy or do anything.