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Ivan W.
Parkins |
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©Ivan W. Parkins 2010, All articles, text, web pages property of
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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: ►A
review of Mitt Romney’s book No Apology ►Whose
party, whose house, whose budget? ►More
political justice in Washington? ►Reprint
from 2008, Confused Elections ►Free
Markets, reprint from 1980 ►Partisanship
and Real Change? Reprint 2008 |
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NO APOLOGY A
review and comment on Mitt Romney’s new book By Ivan W. Parkins On the second page of
Mitt Romney’s book, NO APOLOGY, he pays his respects to Servan-Schreiber’s THE AMERICAN
CHALLENGE, 1967, a best-seller of its time.
The thesis of that book was that Europeans needed to worry less about
their fears of invasion by American capital, which was not huge, and more
about keeping pace with American management and technological advances. That did give much of Europe a perceptible
boost out of its lethargy and self-hate. Now, Romney is suggesting that the United States needs some
similar changes of attitude itself.
And, instead we do seem to be moving towards Europe’s policies, even
as the Europeans are trying to modify or abandon them. Romney states as the pillars of his own
political agenda are: a strong economy; a strong military; and a strong and
free people. I favored Romney for
President in 2008 and, if I survive to a little past 90, I hope to vote for
him again. For an autobiographical/political document, Romney’s book is
unusually readable and substantive.
His range of acquaintances important to our foreign and military
policies is broader than I had previously realized. More impressive is the extent that he has
attempted to acquaint himself with at least a few of the ultimate recipients,
for better or for worse, of the policies that he, especially when Governor,
has helped to institute. Romney offers several reasons why the health care legislation in
which he participated as Governor of Massachusetts was a less extreme venture
than the one now pending for the United States. He is familiar with the related
problems. I found more surprising, the
extent to which he is familiar also with the many problems of our education
establishment, including some alternatives to the unionized and
intellectually stultifying system that now prevails. |
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OUR PARTIES, OUR BUDGETS, AND WHOSE HOUSE? The
misinterpretation of the facts By Ivan W. Parkins I disagree sharply with the tendency of many Americans to equate
our Democrat and Republican Parties in matters of budgeting and national
debt. Obviously, there is some
superficial truth in that view; both have contributed, but not nearly in
equal proportions or circumstances. A
mostly overlooked change in partisan control of American Administrations occurred in 1956, and it has continued
since. Prior to 1956, every President
who won a majority of the popular vote also got a Congress of his own
party. Republican President Eisenhower
was the first to win a majority of the popular vote (and he won a landslide)
without getting a Congress of his own party to go with it. Since the 1956 election each of our parties has held the
Presidency five times. But, all five
of the Democrats have entered office with Democrat majorities in Congress
while only George W. Bush, in 2004, among the Republicans, has had such an
experience. Furthermore, both Johnson
and Carter had greater supporting partisan majorities in Congress than any
Republican President in our history.
Meanwhile, Bush’s was smaller than those that greeted the five
Democrat Presidents recently. The whole development of representative government has depended
heavily upon control of the purse-strings.
Our Constitution requires that tax bills originate in the House. In the mid-1970s, once they gotten rid of
President Nixon, the mostly Democrat Congress enlarged its role in
budgeting. Since 1954, Democrats have
dominated the House with many large majorities and with majorities for a
great majority of the time. Compared to Democrat Presidents, the Republican
Presidents of our lifetimes have had very limited opportunities to shape the
limits of spending. Isn’t in about time that we look more critically at our grossly
unrepresentative House of Representatives? |
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MORE POLITICAL JUSTICE IN WASHINGTON? By Ivan W. Parkins A key to major legal
cases against high political figures is how the official charges are
defined. The House Committee on the
Judiciary carefully drafted charges to limit relative evidence in the case
against President Nixon to the 1972 election, thus excluding what previous
Presidents had done. A careful
prosecutor ordered an aide to collect evidence from previous Presidencies. When Hillary Rodham came up with a report
documenting numerous examples of similar irregularities, he ordered her to
get rid of it. For the Clinton
impeachment, the Judiciary Committee excluded possible charges of illegal
campaign donations (Chinese) and of illegal citizenship grants, for both of
which there was documentary evidence.
Clinton was charged only with perjury and obstructing justice derived
from his “private” dalliances. “Scooter” Libby was
convicted of giving false testimony to an investigator in a matter that was
already known to have been misreported, and not actually criminal. Democrat committee
chairmen, in both House and Senate, are promising us more political “justice”
soon. I.W. Parkins, 2/10/09 |
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FREE MARKETS By Ivan
W. Parkins The following are brief adaptations from
columns that I did in the local BUYER’S GUIDE during 1980. A
simplified, money, value system and free market exchange are much of what
makes capitalism function. How
is it that hundreds of millions of people can each contribute his own kind of
work and each receive numerous products of his own choosing? The substitution of more complex, word based, value systems,
i.e. regulations, greatly complicates and almost invariably delays,
exchanges.
Authors of THE FEDERALIST, more than two centuries ago were well aware
of the danger:
Every new regulation concerning commerce or revenue, or in any manner
affecting the value of the different species of property, presents a new
harvest for those who watch the change, and can trace its consequences; a
harvest, reared not by themselves, but by the toils and cares of the great
body of their fellow-citizens.
According to an article in FORTUNE, 8/14/78, Congress tried to prove
that point. In that earlier oil crisis
it enacted a subsidy to help small refiners.
The subsidy was so generous that new small refineries were created,
not to refine oil (they were too inefficient) but to profit from the
subsidy. Does that sound like ethanol to
you? If
that is not convincing, consider the effects upon poor Africans and some
others of our banning DDT. Malaria, a
major plague to humans throughout history, had been declining rapidly. With the ban, malaria returned in millions
of cases and an estimated million deaths per year. No doubt DDT had been over-used, but that
gross regulation will likely be recorded as one of the largest and most
lethal “crimes” of our age.
Regulation should be undertaken only with great caution. |
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Confused
Elections By Ivan
W. Parkins Reprint
from 2008 Our
national election system has become confused in ways that hamper effective
leadership and obscure partisan responsibility. Since 1948, the first post WWII
presidential election, five democrats (Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, and
Clinton) have won office. There have
also been five Republican winners (Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, G.
W. Bush). But,
contrary to our previous history, there has been little apparent correlation
between presidential election successes and congressional support. In 1992, Clinton, who had just won 43% of
the popular vote, entered office with larger majorities in both houses of
Congress than any Republican President has had since the 1920’s.
Carter, a majority winner of the popular vote with 50.1% got one of
the largest congressional majorities in our history.
Among recent Democrats, only Truman and Clinton have had to face
Congresses dominated by the other party, and neither of those Presidents won
a majority of the popular vote. Among
the five recent Republicans were three winners of landslide reelections
(Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan) and none of them got a Republican Congress
with his new term. Do
American consciously vote against leadership and for partisan conflict, or
are other factors shaping our election results? |
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Partisanship and Real Change By
Ivan W. Parkins
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