Thinking It Through: Four poor excuses for political apathy
By Richard Reeb
For the Victorville Daily Press
For all its problems, the United States of America is the best country for human happiness in the world today. But whether it’s because of its problems, or the belief that it has none, many citizens refrain from or disdain political participation, leaving that challenging and frustrating task to others.
Typically, these folks mean no harm, not becoming open enemies or finding refuge in factionalism, but they are missing out and not just skipping out on citizenship.
Under this category, I have discerned four basic types.
Thinking It Through: Commerce should not be taken for granted or abused
By Richard Reeb
For the Victorville Daily Press
The pandemic shutdown we continue to experience far beyond its utility effectively caused an economic recession as unemployment and bankruptcy soared, further exacerbated by the protests that were indistinguishable from riots, now resumed and apparently taking up permanent residence in our national life.
This is nothing new as massive government intervention in and interference with commerce has driven primarily Democratic Party leaders for generations whether it’s the New Deal or the Great Society or Transformation.
One does not have to be a cynic to wonder out loud whether blue state governors and local leaders fondly seized upon the crisis they could not bear to see “go to waste” and transformed the Trump administration’s prosperity into misery for millions.
Thinking It Through: Politics or tribalism, America s choice
By Richard Reeb
For the Victorville Daily Press
Politics has long had a bad name but it is far preferable to the available alternatives. Ever since the Greek city, or polis, superseded clans as the effective and superior governing unit, true citizenship emerged, and politicians discussed and deliberated prior to taking action. But in the rest of the world, individuals were submerged in tribal identities borne of kinship, race or skin color.
As civilized as Greek cities were, they had a major difficulty in that they were weak in the face of empires established by the various conquerors of the many tribes that characterized much of the world. After years of waging war on each other, they fell to Alexander the Great of Macedonia and ultimately were swallowed up by the Roman Empire.
Thinking It Through: Why we must always defend the nation of free speech
By Richard Reeb
For the Victorville Daily Press
It may strike some as odd, if not perverse, to make the case for the nation of free speech rather than simply for free speech itself. But as I will argue, we enjoy free speech’s benefits because of our Constitution rather than the other way around. No right can be secure in the absence of protection, which reminds us what freedom of speech is for. It is not an end in itself.
In the latest issue of National Review, a conservative publication to which I have subscribed since my college days, Charles C.W. Cooke rightly deplores the Left’s increasing hostility to free speech, reminding us that it was not always this way. For most of the last century, liberalism’s hallmark was its ringing defense of the right of all and sundry to express their opinions, provided they were not accompanied by violence or marked by slander.