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Ivan W.
Parkins |
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©Ivan W. Parkins 2009, All articles, text, web pages property of
Ivan W. Parkins. Use of any material
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About Ivan W. Parkins: Dr. Parkins is a retired professor of
Political Science from Central Michigan University. He received his PhD from the University of
Chicago and is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy. Dr. Parkins served as a naval officer
during WWII aboard the battleship Alabama.
He is a recent widower with three daughters, 3 grand children and 2
great grand children. Dr. Parkins has
written extensively, having authored 3 books and a newspaper opinion column
for many years. |
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Front Page |
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In This Issue: Happy
Thanksgiving -Did You Know?, Parkins Points to Ponder -Representatives,
Partisanship and Budgets -Revolution in America,
Healthcare!! -Road to Chaos |
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DID YOU KNOW? Parkins Points to Ponder
By Ivan W. Parkins …. The great post-WWII spy scare (
referred to as McCarthyism) was not a wild exaggeration. The actual Soviet penetrations of America’s
secrets, and their facilitation by Americans of communist belief or sympathy,
actually exceeded the official investigations and prosecutions. Many persons who were “cleared” were
actually guilty and many who were guilty, were never identified. …. “The Youth Movement” of the 1960’s and 1970’s actually generated here
at home an increased rate of death among youths, while the rates of other age
groups were falling. Many deaths in
that increase were violent, and their numbers totaled more than those from
our military combat abroad. ….. At the time that Congress ordered a halt to all financial, air, and
military equipment support to our allies in South Vietnam, it appeared the
South Vietnamese were successfully and willingly holding off the attacks of
the Communists, without support from American ground forces. ….Both of the major presidential impeachment efforts of recent
Congresses, Nixon’s and Clinton’s, were subsequently denounced as improper in
books by the Chief Investigative Counsels chosen by the House Judiciary
Committees to pursue them—and those Chief Investigators were both
Democrats. In Nixon’s case the charges
were drawn by the Judiciary Committee in such a way as to exclude evidence of
any similar behaviors by earlier Presidents; in Clinton’s case they were drawn
so as to exclude Clinton’s most obviously official and illegal acts, grants
of citizenship to persons not eligible and severe campaign finance
violations. ….. Since the Korean War, the trend of military spending, as a portion of
this nation’s gross domestic product , has been downward to a little less
than half of what it was in 1951-52.
Meanwhile, spending for education, health, and other welfare have all
taken increasing portions, and together have taken much more than spending
for defense. …..One hasty act of the Environmental Protection Agency, joining with the
World Health Organization in the ban on DDT, resulted in more deaths (of
Blacks from malaria) than all the deaths from all ethic conflicts and
American military engagements in our nation’s history. . . .
. . .
. . Were any of the above
episodes the choices of an American public who were well served by the
educational, journalistic, and representative institutions of our nation? |
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REPRESENTATIVES, PARTISANSHIP AND BUDGETS This is a reprint from Sept. 22,
2009 By Ivan W. Parkins If you doubt that, for about 80% of the
time that even our oldest citizens remember, Democrats have dominated the
House of Representatives, or that their majorities in the House have been, on
average about 4 times larger than Republican majorities of that period,
please check some of the many available records. So, how does a President, when
he is faced with a large opposition party majority in the House, accomplish
the things that he believes he must do?
He accepts compromises, and that with modern day Democrats usually
means spending, and taxes, for things that the Republican President opposes at least in
the present budget year. That has been the fate of every
recent Republican President throughout much, or all, of his administration. One of the first things that Congress did
after forcing President Nixon out was to vote itself a larger role in the
process of budgeting—and taxation. President Ford, advised by his medical
experts that a very dangerous flu season was coming, approved expenditures
and legal protections to assure adequate flu vaccine. In order to get that, he had to approve a
bill that also included a larger expenditure for job training which he had
recently vetoed. President G.H.W. Bush, trying to counter
Saddam Hussein’s seizure of Kuwait, was faced with Democrat resistance, not
only to war, but to enacting the annual budget without substantial increases
of social spending and taxes. Bush
gave up his “no new taxes” pledge, won the Gulf War, and lost his chance to
be reelected. Representation of at least, some people, arose from medieval
traditions, especially England’s.
Kings, in need of more money looked for ways to raise taxes with less
public resistance. They granted, to at
least some of their more prosperous subjects, a voice in taxation issues. Our Constitution goes
considerably farther. It provides for
a House of Representatives first among the several branches. And it further requires that “All bills for
raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; . . .” The Constitution also provides, and
practice has enlarged, roles of the other branches. But, in evaluating how our political
parties have managed finances in recent times, it is important to take notice
of which party has held majorities in the House and how large those
majorities were over what periods of time. Most people will, I
believe find, as I have recently, that partisan advantages of Democrats in
the makeup of the House of Representatives have been even larger than I had
noticed. The last House majority of Republicans as
large as 100 votes was the one that greeted Herbert Hoover following his
election in 1928. FDR’s first five
House majorities were: 194, 219, 246, 93, and 105. The next best Republican
majority in the House was the one of the 80th Congress, 57
votes. It was lambasted and ended by
Truman in the elections of 1948. Eisenhower entered office with a House
Republican majority of 10 votes; he was the last Republican President to hold
any House majority until 2000. In his last two years Eisenhower faced a
Democrat majority of 130 in the House.
But let’s get beyond the Great Depression, New Deal, and World War II,
and the period of their aftermaths About half a century ago President
Kennedy entered office, along with a House of Representatives in which the
Democrats had an 89 vote majority.
That majority was just about the average of those the Democrats have
enjoyed for 38 of the following 50 years.
In that period Democrats had six House majorities of 100 or more. Meanwhile, during the Clinton and Bush
Administrations there were 12 years of Republican majorities in the House,
but they averaged only about 20 votes. The net result, if we make a
combination of years and sizes of majorities, is to give Democrats in the
House an advantage of about fourteen to one over Republicans in shaping the
nation’s budgets during the past half century. Shouldn’t
the above conditions count in assessing the comparative spending habits of
Democrat and Republican Administrations? All of the above is very much a matter of
public record. Too little of it has
been given much notice by our “old mainstream media.” |
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REVOLUTION IN AMERICA? And it is occurring
right in our own Congress.
Healthcare!! This is a reprint from June 21, 2009 By Ivan W. Parkins What we are witnessing, and many
Americans find confusing, is a major stage of revolution in America. Whether this is to further, perhaps to
cement, revolutionary change or to fade into something more compromising and
consistent with our past, is yet to be determined. President Obama has developed for
himself a remarkably attractive personality and manner. But, on “the greatest” political stage he
often seems to follow a script that has been written elsewhere, and one that
is both disturbing and dangerous to America.
Certainly there were evidences of this before his election. But far too many of those whose job it is
to reveal such matters to the public share with Obama most of his disturbing
and dangerous political attitudes. To take just the policy issue most
salient at the moment, health care is deserving of prime consideration. But, the nationalization of an increasing
portion of health finance appears to be counter-indicated by most of the
evidence at home and abroad. Our
existing government programs are already operating “on borrowed time” by most
financial indications. Other advanced
nations, with greater health care roles, are having severe and increasing
difficulties. Nothing that this new
Administration has reported so far suggests that it has really incorporated
new or especially constructive research into its proposals. On the contrary, what is probably the
most wasteful, and dangerous, aspect of our health care, is also a major
source of campaign revenue for Democrats who now press for health care
reform. (I was drafting this as
President Obama was addressing the American
Medical Association. If he does act
vigorously in this matter, I will need to apologize.) Excessive, and too often corrupt, tort
proceedings utilize the complex variations in how individuals respond to
medications and treatments. That, plus the limited comprehension of medical
science and the often sympathetic reactions of jurors to individuals who are
ailing, enables trial lawyers to extract vast “booty” from the health care
industry. First, among those who profit from the
above practice, are the trial lawyers; they are followed by various
coconspirators. Among the latter are
dishonest medical practitioners and other witnesses. Not least among beneficiaries have been the
judges and politicians who maintain or make the rulings and laws that
facilitate such practices. The few huge
damage awards that are widely publicized are only the tip of the
iceberg. Many more, and often not
small, cases are settled out of court.
Physicians and others of the medical professions pay high insurance
premiums to protect themselves. They
also prescribe expensive tests, often mainly for their own
protection. And defense attorneys
seldom work for free. Worthy of emphasis in all of this is the
fact that both gross bribery, and the more widely accepted practice of
politicians allowing their legal rulings and legislation to be tipped by the
campaign contributions they receive, are both essential to its continuation
at any but a tiny fraction of the level now prevailing. When this Democrat Administration can
act decisively to remedy such health care related tort abuses, perhaps it
will be able to deal with such practices in other parts of our economy. That would weaken substantially my charge
that what we are really facing is not mere reform, but revolution.
I.W. Parkins 061908 |
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Congress, Road to Chaos This is reprint from June, 2009 By Ivan W. Parkins It takes a bizarre partisanship for the
majority of 110th. Congress to suppose that their modest victory
(in an election attended by nearly 30 million fewer American voters than
elected the 109th. (Two years earlier) mandates major changes in the nations
direction. The evidence suggests more
clearly that many Americans are alienated and confused about how their
government does, or does not, work. Congress has come to believe that
oversight of the Executive and Judicial Branches is it’s most
important function. And, the resulting
conflicts
do win media attention. Meanwhile,
Congress focuses too little of its attention on providing our country with
effective laws for dealing with immigration, energy needs, etc. Even more significantly, Congress fails to
approve timely, manageable, and “clean” budgets. If the United States is to survive and to
prosper, it cannot afford a Legislative Branch that neglects its own primary,
and most constructive, powers while it interferes in time-consuming and other
damaging ways with the Executive and Judicial Branches. No simple reform will remedy what has
become a systemic and institutional failure of Congress. The problem extends beyond the short
comings of individual members and practices.
Congress must be reconstituted to be both closer to the American
people and more respectful of the other branches. Anything less is just more pavement on the
road to chaos. See
Disassemble the House I.W. Parkins |