People for the West -Tucson
Newsletter, April, 2021
PO Box 86868, Tucson, AZ 85754-6868
pfw-tucson@cox.net
Real environmentalism can go hand in hand with natural resource production, private property rights, and access to public lands
Comments on Property Rights
by Jonathan DuHamel
Property rights include not just the ownership of the property, but more importantly, the right of beneficial use of the property. Recent lockdowns have denied beneficial use to many citizens.
See also: https://wryheat.wordpress.com/2012/05/04/property-rights-and-freedom/
Check out this three-part series on property rights from the American Policy Center:
Why Private Property Matters: Part 1 – Prosperity – Stability – Freedom
by Tom DeWeese, American Policy Center
Most Americans tend to think of private property simply as a home – the place where the family resides, store their belongings and find shelter and safety from the elements. It’s where you live. It’s yours because you pay the mortgage and the taxes. Most people don’t give property ownership much more thought than that.
There was a time when property ownership was considered to be much more. Property, and the ability to own and control it, was life itself. The great economist, John Locke, whose writings and ideas had major influence on the nation’s founders, believed that “life and liberty are secure only so long as the right of property is secure.” (Read more)
Why Property Rights Matter: Part 2 – The Lost Definition of Private Property Rights
by Tom DeWeese
In the 1990s, an all-out assault on property rights was well underway, lead by a radical environmental movement, resulting in massive federal land grabs in the name of conservation. As one can imagine, courts across the nation were flooded with cases of people attempting to defend their property rights from government takings. In the state of Washington, one of the major targets for such programs, the state Supreme Court realized it didn’t have an adequate definition of property rights to use in considering such cases. That’s when State Supreme Court Justice Richard B. Sanders wrote a “Fifth Amendment” treatise which included the following definition of property rights:
“Property in a thing consists not merely in its ownership and possession, but in the unrestricted right of use, enjoyment, and disposal. Anything which destroys any of the elements of property, to that extent, destroys the property itself. The substantial value of property lies in its use. If the right of use be denied, the value of the property is annihilated and ownership is rendered a barren right.”
“Use” of the land is the key. Using the land in a productive way beneficial to the owner is what gives the land value. Simply paying the taxes and mortgage while some undefined government entity can rule and regulate how the property is used, according to Justice Sanders, is a “barren right” that annihilates its value. (Read more)
Why Property Rights Matter: Part 3 – The Growing Attack on Property Rights
by Tom DeWeese
The increasing encroachment of government regulations, pontificating politicians and the enforcement of Social Justice schemes have led to a loss of understanding of the terms private property and property rights.
Once it was understood that the unauthorized entering of private property was a violation to the utmost. The property owner was justified and supported in taking necessary actions to remove the trespasser and secure that land. Today, such ideas in the new America are considered radical, old fashioned, out of touch, and even reprehensible. The homeowner can be arrested for defending against an armed intruder. The intruder can actually sue a homeowner for shooting them even as they break down the door intending to rob and do harm. Home protection is called violence, perhaps even racism. It’s a whole new world of compliance, fear, and acceptance rather than pride, protection, and prosperity in ownership.
The Green New Deal is the current name for the agenda to control living standards and obliterate private property and sound energy sources. Massive wind and solar farms bury massive amounts of land under their steel and concrete infrastructures, as private land and farms lying in their path find it nearly impossible to co-exist. Driving people off the rural lands and into the cities is the stated goal. (Read more)
Why Property Rights Matter: Part 4 – How to Fight Back
by Tom DeWeese
How do we effectively fight to restore private property, and our freedom of movement in America? The first step to answer that question is to stop depending on one person, one icon to lead us forward. We must take the responsibility ourselves to assure that government does not move forward unattended. (Read more) ☼
CLIMATE AND ENERGY MADNESS:
“The truth is that, to many people calling themselves Socialists, revolution does not mean a movement of the masses with which they hope to associate themselves; it means a set of reforms which ‘we’, the clever ones, are going to impose upon ‘them’, the Lower Orders.” —George Orwell
The “Social Cost of Carbon” Scam Revisited
by Jonathan DuHamel
The “social cost of carbon”(SCC) is a computer-generated artifice that puts a dollar figure on the alleged environmental and economic damage caused by carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels. This number is supposed to allow bureaucrats to offset the alleged damage through regulation and taxes, i.e., it will increase the cost of electricity and gasoline. The SCC is a fake number that is easily manipulated depending on assumptions made. The computer models fail to take into account the benefits of carbon dioxide, such as making our crops more robust and more water efficient. Also, there is absolutely no physical evidence that our carbon dioxide emissions have any significant role in controlling global climate. (Read more on Wryheat, written in 2015)
Read recent articles on SCC:
Why ‘Social Cost of Carbon’ Is Most Useless Number You’ve Never Heard Of
by Kevin Dayaratna
Dubbed by some as “the most important number you’ve never heard of,” the social cost of carbon is defined as the economic damages associated with a ton of carbon dioxide emissions across a particular time horizon. That metric, relied upon heavily by the Obama administration, has been used as the basis for regulatory policy in the energy sector of the economy. Three sets of statistical models are used to estimate the social cost of carbon. Social cost of carbon estimates are based on very questionable assumptions regarding the climate’s sensitivity to carbon dioxide emissions, naive projections reaching 300 years into the future, and ignorance of discount rate recommendations by the Office of Management and Budget regarding cost-benefit analysis. Our results tell the same story: Assumptions made by modelers can drastically change the purported estimates and thus beef up the damages as much as they want. (Read more)
Social Cost of Carbon May Be Social Benefit of Carbon, Economist Finds
by James Taylor (commenting on Dauaratna’s paper)
The Biden administration made headlines by imposing a “social cost of carbon” – to be factored into federal cost-benefit analysis – that is more than six times higher than the social cost of carbon determined by the Trump administration. However, economist and data scientist Kevin Dayaratna published an article documenting that the alleged social “cost” of carbon may actually be a social “benefit” of carbon. In an article for the Daily Signal, Dayaratna observes that any accurate assessment of the social cost of carbon must include social benefits as well as merely social harms. Importantly, Dayaratna observes that any sound cost/benefit assessment must take into account “positive agricultural feedback effects associated with carbon dioxide emissions.”
“In fact, we found that under very reasonable assumptions, those benefits can outweigh the costs, suggesting that the social cost of carbon can indeed be negative,” Dayaratna writes. “The policy implication of a negative social cost of carbon is that the government should not be taxing carbon dioxide emissions, but should be subsidizing it instead.” (Source)
See also: The Social Cost of Carbon Fantasy and
Biden’s Arbitrary Social Cost of Carbon: What You Need to Know
12 State Attorneys General Sue Biden Admin Over Its Climate Policies The lawsuit said Biden’s executive order enables regulatory agencies to place restrictions on nearly every aspect of Americans’ lives in order to cut back on greenhouse gas emissions. ☼
A Climate and Energy Primer for Politicians and Media
by Allan M.R. MacRae, B.A.Sc.(Eng.), M.Eng.
The below treatise was sent to Canadian and American politicians and the media – but most of them won’t understand it, because they have no scientific competence and have been utterly deceived – programmed for decades by false climate scares and green energy frauds.
Summary:
We published in 2002 that there was no catastrophic human-made global warming /climate change crisis, and green energy schemes were not green and produced little useful (dispatchable) energy. Dangerous global warming and climate change have not happened and green energy schemes have proved to be costly, unreliable and ineffective. Global warming is not a threat, but global cooling is dangerous. In 2002 we predicted that global cooling would start circa 2020, based on low solar activity, and that prediction is increasingly supported by the evidence.
Politicians foolishly accepted very-scary global warming falsehoods and brewed the perfect storm, crippling our energy systems with costly and unreliable green energy schemes that utterly fail due to intermittency, at a time when we will need more reliable, dispatchable energy due to increased energy demand and imminent global cooling. The good people of Australia, Britain, Germany, California and Texas have all suffered and died due to green energy failures that were Predictable and predicted.
The policy incompetence of Western governments over past decades is appalling. By attempting to appease extreme leftists who seek to destroy our economies and our freedoms, governments have adopted a failed strategy that makes us weaker, poorer and at much greater risk. (Read full paper) ☼
Texas, California Blackouts Reveal Fatal Flaw in Biden’s Energy Plans
by Tom Harris and Dr. Jay Lehr
Does President Joe Biden really want the United States to cede its hard-won energy independence and leadership position in the world? Because that is precisely what will happen if the president tries to sweep away the inexpensive, reliable forms of energy that have been powering America for decades.
To understand the disaster that awaits the nation if Biden makes good on his pledge to replace fossil fuels with wind and solar power, we need only look to California and Texas, two states that have already tried to do exactly that. Power outages are now commonplace in California. Its troubles are explained by officials who now admit to an over-reliance on wind and solar power.And what about Texas, where an over-reliance on wind and solar power was clearly a major reason that millions of Texans shivered in the dark for several days in late February? (Read more) ☼
A Fracking Ban Would Devastate the U.S. Economy and Threaten National Security, Says Energy Department Report
by Tim Benson
A report from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy says a ban on hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) would cost millions of jobs, result in trillions in lost gross domestic product (GDP) and labor income, dramatically increase gasoline prices and electricity bills, and increase emissions of carbon dioxide and various pollutants. (Read more) ☼
STATE OF THE UNION
The Return of the One-room School
by Barney Brenner
There are compelling reasons for parents to yank their kids from the typical school, especially for those who love America and its founding values and principles: the rampant teaching that the United States is a racist and evil country and has been from its very beginnings, the precipitous decline in academic rigor and results which has increasingly plagued our schools for generations, and the evolving gender-dysphoric unisex-education courses with their abhorrent bathroom and locker-room policies which imperil female pupils in particular. (Read more)
Comments on “Reparations” by Star Parker
Star Parker, an African-American woman, is the founder and president of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education, a Washington D.C. based Public Policy Institute that fights poverty and restores dignity through messages of faith, freedom and personal responsibility. Some recent comments:
“My ancestors were slaves. And my life as a young woman was a mess. Was my life a mess because my ancestors were slaves? I don’t think so. My life was a mess because I lived a wanton, irresponsible existence, defined by promiscuity, petty crimes and scamming the nation’s well-meaning but totally confused welfare system to the greatest extent of my ability. Did I need reparations to turn things around for me? Certainly not. I needed a wake-up call, which, to my great gratitude, I got, from a few church-going black Christians who told me the way I was living was unacceptable. I went to church, took back responsibility for my life and turned my circumstances around. The problem with the idea of reparations is it redirects attention away from exactly where attention is needed: on individuals’ personal responsibility for their own unique lives.”
“Compensation for damages is a basic legal principle. It’s about personal responsibility. Individual A sues individual B for damages caused. Exactly what the damages were and exactly how B injured A must be shown in a court of law. Today, only a small fraction of our population has ancestors who were around before 1865 when slavery was legal. The idea of collective guilt, with no specific individual identified as causing the damage and no specific individual showing how he or she was damaged, doesn’t fly. If there is any legitimate claim of collective guilt, it is the guilt of original sin, which we learn in the book of Genesis. Every man and woman is imperfect and responsible for fixing themselves — and, by doing so, helping to fix the world.” ☼
The Biden Administration So Far:
A humanitarian crisis at the border. The cancellation of thousands of jobs in the energy sector. Direct attacks on American liberties, the continued devaluation of the American dollar, and a record amount being added to the national debt. The Biden administration has also helped create irresponsible bailouts of pension funds and major cities across the nation and have pledged to ensnare the American economy due to a radical environmental agenda.
Biden’s Actions Are Encouraging Supply Chain Dependencies on Foreign Suppliers
by Ronald Stein
Despite President Joe Biden’s February 24th vocal concerns about America’s growing dependence on unreliable foreign sources for the supply chain of materials and products to support electric cars, pharmaceuticals, hospital supplies to address the COVID-19 pandemic, and military hardware, his actions are directly opposite of his vocal concerns, as they are encouraging national security concerns. (Read more) ☼
H.R.1 – For the People Act of 2021
This bill addresses voter access, election integrity and security, campaign finance, and ethics for the three branches of government.
Specifically, the bill expands voter registration (e.g., automatic and same-day registration) and voting access (e.g., vote-by-mail and early voting). It also limits removing voters from voter rolls.
The bill requires states to establish independent redistricting commissions to carry out congressional redistricting.
Additionally, the bill sets forth provisions related to election security, including sharing intelligence information with state election officials, supporting states in securing their election systems, developing a national strategy to protect U.S. democratic institutions, establishing in the legislative branch the National Commission to Protect United States Democratic Institutions, and other provisions to improve the cybersecurity of election systems.
Further, the bill addresses campaign finance, including by expanding the prohibition on campaign spending by foreign nationals, requiring additional disclosure of campaign-related fundraising and spending, requiring additional disclaimers regarding certain political advertising, and establishing an alternative campaign funding system for certain federal offices.
The bill addresses ethics in all three branches of government, including by requiring a code of conduct for Supreme Court Justices, prohibiting Members of the House from serving on the board of a for-profit entity, and establishing additional conflict-of-interest and ethics provisions for federal employees and the White House.
The bill requires the President, the Vice President, and certain candidates for those offices to disclose 10 years of tax returns. (Source)
In an op-ed for the Daily Signal , former Vice-President Pence said that H.R. 1, known as the For the People Act, is “unconstitutional, reckless, and anti-democratic” because it would take power over elections away from the states. “Congress will vote this week on HR 1, the so-called For the People Act, a massive 800-page election overhaul bill that would increase opportunities for election fraud, trample the First Amendment, further erode confidence in our elections, and forever dilute the votes of legally qualified eligible voters.” “The bill would force states to adopt universal mail-in ballots, early voting, same-day voter registration, online voter registration, and automatic voter registration for any individual listed in state and federal government databases, such as the Department of Motor Vehicles and welfare offices, ensuring duplicate registrations and that millions of illegal immigrants are quickly registered to vote.
States would be required to count every mail-in vote that arrives up to 10 days after Election Day. States must also allow ballot harvesting—where paid political operatives collect absentee ballots from places such as nursing homes—exposing our most vulnerable voters to coercion and increasing the risk that their ballots will be tampered with.
At the same time, state and local election officials would be stripped of their ability to maintain the accuracy of voter rolls, barred from verifying voter eligibility, and voter ID would be banned from coast to coast.
Congressional districts would be redrawn by unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats. Illegal immigrants and law-abiding American citizens would receive equal representation in Congress. Felons would be able to vote the moment they set foot out of prison.”
See also: 8 Ways That HR 1, ‘For the People Act,’ Imperils Free and Fair Elections ☼
Why The Equality Act Is Bad Law
By Brett Stevens
Imagine arriving at a courtroom and being told that instead of being “innocent until proven guilty,” you must prove your innocence or be convicted of a crime. Regardless of the good intentions behind them, laws like the Equality Act are bad laws because they make us all guilty until proven innocent. (Read more) ☼
Critical Race theory:
Critical Race theory, a Marxist idea, is invading our schools, business, and government. Read these articles from the Heritage Foundation.
Noxious Marxist theories that have festered in academia for decades finally burst out of ivy-covered walls in 2020, invading all aspects of American life. It wasn’t just the cities succumbing to nightly riots—everything from sporting events, to classrooms, to the workplace was hammered with the message that America was never the land of the free.
Critical Race Theory (CRT) makes race the prism through which its proponents analyze all aspects of American life—and do so with a degree of persistence that has helped CRT impact all of American life. CRT underpins identity politics, an ongoing effort to reimagine the United States as a nation riven by groups, each with specific claims on victimization.
https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/commentary/how-critical-race-theory-dividing-america
https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/commentary/marxist-critical-race-theory-seeps-us-courts
This ideology teaches that “Whiteness” is oppression and that all its manifestations—including “the nuclear family,” “objective, rational linear thinking,” and the idea that “hard work is the key to success”—must be stamped out. It rejects the most fundamental beliefs of our nation, that we are all equal under the law and should have the same opportunities to prosper and pursue happiness based on individual merit. ☼
Thoughts from our Founding Fathers:
The founding fathers of the United States of America had a profound understanding of human nature. They fully understood that human nature and human nature alone could lead to the downfall of their dream of the best possible form of government the world had ever known. In their own words:
“Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.” – Benjamin Franklin
“A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government.” – Alexander Hamilton
“I think myself that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious. Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have … The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases. The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.” – Thomas Jefferson
“You know well that government always kept a kind of standing army of news writers who, without any regard to truth or to what should be like truth, invented and put into the papers whatever might serve the [government] ministers. This suffices with the mass of the people who have no means of distinguishing the false from the true paragraphs of a newspaper.” -Thomas Jefferson
“It is in the interest of tyrants to reduce the people to ignorance and vice. For they cannot live in any country where virtue and knowledge prevail.” – Samuel Adams
“It does not take a majority to prevail… but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.” – Samuel Adams
“The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite.” – Thomas Jefferson
Quotes complied by Canada Free Press ☼
Some other thoughts:
“All you have to do, is to see whether the law takes from some what belongs to them in order to give it to others to whom it does not belong. We must see whether the law performs, for the profit of one citizen and to the detriment of others, an act which that citizen could not perform himself without being guilty of a crime. Repeal such a law without delay. … [I]f you don’t take care, what begins by being an exception tends to become general, to multiply itself, and to develop into a veritable system.” —Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850)
“If one understands that Socialism is not a ‘share the wealth’ program but is in reality a method to consolidate and control the wealth, then the seeming paradox of super rich men promoting Socialism becomes no paradox at all. Instead it becomes logical, even the perfect tool of power-seeking megalomaniacs. Communism, or more accurately Socialism, is not a movement of the down-trodden masses but of the economic elite.” —Gary Allen
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Our Mission
1) Support private property rights.
2) Support multiple use management of federal lands for agriculture, livestock grazing, mining, oil and gas production, recreation, timber harvesting and water development activities.
3) Support a balance of environmental responsibility and economic benefit for all Americans by urging that environmental policy be based on good science and sound economic principles.
Newsletters can be viewed online on Jonathan’s Wryheat Blog:
https://wryheat.wordpress.com/
See my essay on climate change:
https://wryheat.wordpress.com/climate-in-perspective/
and
https://wryheat.wordpress.com/2019/01/03/a-review-of-the-state-of-climate-science/
If you like murder mysteries, try Lonni’s novels. See descriptions and links at:
https://wryheat.wordpress.com/lonnis-murder-mysteries/
The Constitution is the real contract with America.
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People for the West – Tucson, Inc.
PO Box 86868
Tucson, AZ 85754-6868
Jonathan DuHamel, President & Editor
Dr. John Forrester, Vice President
Lonni Lees, Associate Editor
People for the West – Tucson, Inc. is an Arizona tax-exempt, 501(c)(3) corporation. Newsletter subscriptions are free.
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, any copyrighted material herein is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only.
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