Brown, Schweitzer, Velazquez and testosterone (Sandy Berger may say otherwise, plagiarism is theft)

Billings News ^ | 8/25/04 | ROB NATELSON

[Libloather]

Brown, Schweitzer, Velazquez and testosterone
By ROB NATELSON

It had to happen.

Just when commentators – myself included – were talking about the “feminization” of our culture, here it comes: the testosterone election!

First, there was Arnold Schwarzenegger. Next a firefight bursts out between George W. Bush and John Kerry over who will be tougher on terrorism. (It’s a clue that Bush will win this election that the focus has shifted toward the traditionally “Republican” issue of national defense and away from traditionally “Democratic” issues.)

Now testosterone is pumping through the Montana governor’s race via the masculine issue of guns: “I have more [guns] than I need and less than I want,” brags Brian Schweitzer, the Democratic nominee.

Republican Bob Brown is more specific: He’s got 16, and he knows how to use them. After all, when he went gopher hunting, “In less than three hours, I had 25 confirmed kills.” He thereby confirms our suspicion that part of a governor’s job qualification is blasting rodents.

Both candidates aver manly support for the right to keep and bear arms, enshrined in the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment. Both men pledge firm action to increase access to hunting opportunities, especially at state expense.

Still, something is missing. I’m all for increasing hunting opportunities. But the Second Amendment isn’t chiefly about hunting. It’s about something else that no one in Montana politics has talked about for years: citizen independence.

The founding generation adopted the Second Amendment because they believed that, to survive, a democratic republic needs citizens equipped with and trained in firearms, able to protect themselves from crime, foreign invasion and domestic tyranny.

This was only part of the Founders’ agenda of assuring that individual decision-makers were personally independent of rich patrons and of government. They believed that a mass of dependent voters was poison to a republic – a belief well supported historically. Most dependent voters don’t really have a will of their own. They vote for whoever butters their bread.

Alexander Hamilton put it this way: “In the general course of human nature, a power over a man’s subsistence amounts to a power over his will.” Gouverneur Morris, who wrote the final draft of the Constitution, stated it more wittily: “In Religion the Creature is apt to forget its Creator ... . [I]t is otherwise in political affairs.”

Dependence is one of Montana’s biggest problems. It is all the bigger for being hidden behind individualistic stereotypes. Our huge mass of dependent voters includes, besides welfare recipients and others on the dole, government contractors, farm subsidy recipients and public employees such as myself. This high rate of dependency is not only a result of our long-term economic stagnation, but probably contributes to it.

Yet our principal politicians – Republican and Democrat – rarely if ever address the issue. For example, both Democrat Max Baucus and Republican Conrad Burns spend much of their time in Washington, D.C., bringing home bacon that we didn’t earn and someone else has to pay for.

Both candidates for governor come from the ranks of the dependent: Brown is a longtime public employee and Schweitzer is a farm-subsidy recipient. Both have a history of supporting measures that aggravate, rather than cure, dependency.

One good example: Their support for the state’s Children’s Health Improvement Program. CHIP was billed as improving health care access, but that access was being provided by a private program before CHIP came along. CHIP’s primary effects have been:

1. Throwing hundreds more people into dependency and

2. Raising health care costs, thereby threatening to throw the rest of us into dependency.

So while we’ve got both Brown and Schweitzer in a macho mood, maybe we should ask them if they have any plans to promote the spirit of the Second Amendment by fostering citizen independence from government.

While we’re on the subject of political cojones:

The revelation that staffers in Tracy Velazquez’s congressional campaign were guilty of plagiarism in drafting campaign statements gives her an opportunity to show us something about her character.

Let’s get this straight: Plagiarism isn’t just a prank or, as Sandy Berger might say, an “honest mistake.” (Berger employed the euphemism to minimize his own dishonest mistake.) Plagiarism is theft.

Taking Velazquez at her word that she did not participate in the act, the fact remains that as of this writing, she has not fired the perpetrators.

An employer who does not fire an employee who stole in the course of employment is an accomplice in the theft. As a very well educated woman, Velazquez should know that.

Let’s hope she does the right thing.

Rob Natelson is a University of Montana law professor and president of Montana Conservatives.

[Libloather]

So, Montana sucks now? I guess the only safe haven for conservatives is Mexico. (Canada is too cold, and their health care system stinks...)