Wednesday, October 30, 2019

Citizens United Saved America from Government Censorship

Ask any group of people what they think of “Citizens United” and 100% will not raise their hands in support of it.
Most people think Citizens United unleashed untold billions of “dirty” dark money into our electoral system, allowed rich people to rig the system and let corrupt corporations spend recklessly to pollute our politics and destroy America.
If you think politics today is nasty, you need to crack open some history books. If alive today, Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton would just laugh and say “Hold my beer!” while they regaled everyone with stories of the dirty hi-jinks and insults they both employed early in the republic.
The anger aimed at Citizens United is misplaced. We should be thankful the Supreme Court ruled as they did on March 24, 2009.
Citizens United, a nonprofit 501(c)(4) corporation, wanted to run an ad for their film “Hillary: The Movie” during the 2008 presidential campaign. A lower court ruled that such an ad for the movie constituted “electioneering” which was forbidden under the 2002 McCain-Feingold Act, otherwise known as the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA).
During oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court in Citizens United v. FEC, Justice Samuel Alito asked U.S. Deputy Solicitor Malcolm Stewart of the Obama Justice Department if government banning the ad or the movie was similar to book-banning in the past.
When Stewart answered “yes,” a loud gasp went through the courtroom. Under McCain-Feingold, he went on to say, if the government determined that a publication or movie was electioneering because it contained even one sentence of candidate advocacy, books could be banned from Amazon’s Kindle; labor unions could not hire an author to write a political book; and corporate publishers could be prevented from selling such books.
Everyone in the room was understandably shocked by his answers. The Supreme Court asked that the case be re-briefed and re-argued whereupon they invalidated part of McCain-Feingold and accepted the argument that corporations and labor unions could exercise their right to free speech in political debates just as any citizen could exercise their freedom.
Citizens United saved us from President Obama’s administration being able to censor political speech they did not like. Citizens United saved us from President Trump’s administration being able to censor political speech they did not like.
Thank God for that freedom from government censorship no matter what your political or religious affiliation is.
Citizens United also opened up a new avenue for first-time candidates to compete in crowded primaries where political parties abstain from any endorsements. An independent expenditure committee (IE) can help that newcomer build name identification and win a primary whereas before, incumbents enjoyed an unfair advantage over all challengers.
Citizens United didn’t “cause” our civil discourse to turn vulgar any more than cars cause automobile accidents. Candidates, consultants and partisans make our civil discourse foul and putrid by their desire to win at all costs, including their loss of personal dignity and character.
Money makes it easier for them to accomplish such personal degradation faster.
In the 2016 presidential cycle, $10.3 billion was spent on all federal political campaigns, including $1.6 billion in independent expenditures.
This Halloween, $9 billion will be spent on candy, costumes and decorations. Every four years, we barely spend more on the most important civic duty we have, voting, than we do on Snickers and Twizzlers. In congressional elections, we spend far more on Halloween.
We don’t spend enough money properly to educate the voting populace in a positive way in America. Maybe when a majority of voters start voting regularly against candidates who engage in character assassination of their opponents and never call out independent expenditure committees who do so, we will see a welcome change in our civil discourse and dialogue.
Done the right way, Citizens United can help our representative democracy flourish through free speech. Not flounder.
(first published in North State Journal 10/30/19)

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Wednesday, October 23, 2019

HILL: What if China had colonized America?

Ming America
Listening to Democrat candidates for president makes one think America is a terrible place to live. Income inequality, racism, no single-payer health care system, reckless environmental pollution … America must be the worst country in the world to live in today.
Care to guess what would be worse? What if China had colonized the New World from the West Coast first before the Europeans ever landed at Jamestown or Plymouth Rock? What type of government and society would we have today?
We might be Hong Kong trying to establish its independence from communist China. Worse than that, we probably would never have become a free democratic republic in the first place because our Chinese founders would have had no conception of what individual freedom was supposed to look and act like in a free society.
Had the Ming Dynasty wanted to find a short route to Europe, the emperor of China in 1500 might have sent explorers to the east across the Pacific Ocean. By mistake, they would have bumped into the New World and paved the way to set up a new kingdom in the name of the Ming Dynasty. The ruling potentate, colonists and armies would have been loyal subjects to the emperor of China and all aspects of Colonial life would have mirrored life in China.
Not unlike the English Colonies that were set up on the East Coast. Many of the early colonies were sponsored by a king or queen of a European country ostensibly to find gold and silver mines rumored to be all over the New World, including North Carolina. Americans were treated as royal subjects under British army rule until 1775.
Perhaps dissidents would have escaped China and sailed across the gigantic and dangerous Pacific Ocean to leave oppression and misery behind. Again, just like the Puritans, Huguenots and any number of Europeans who wanted to escape religious or ethnic persecution in order to live a free, albeit not very safe, new life across the Atlantic.
Compared to our history, was there ever any chance that Chinese explorers or rebels would have established a free democratic republic on the West Coast?
No. Zero chance in fact.
Where would Chinese colonists have come up with any of the philosophical ideas that would have led to a democratic republic in the first place? Where in Chinese history would any idea of individual freedom have come from?
Chinese rulers have systematically exterminated citizens who exhibited free thought capabilities. As recently as 1966-76, Chairman Mao boasted about burying alive 46,000 Chinese scholars and philosophers during the so-called “Great Leap Forward.”
Freedom of thought is poison to any dictatorial regime. Freethinkers must be eradicated at all costs.
Chinese culture dates back at least 5,000 years. Chinese rulers over five millennia have extirpated the DNA for free thinkers in China thereby rendering the chances of a Chinese equivalent of John Locke emerging to write about the right to own property next to zero. No Chinese philosopher wrote about the Adam Smith “invisible hand” of capitalism that helps everyone as entrepreneurs pursue their dreams. Instead, they extol the virtues of collectivism serving the monarch or communist party.
The structure and very fabric of our American way of life are dependent on our founders’ understanding of the philosophies of Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, Epicurus, Epictetus, Augustine, Aquinas, Mill and Kant. None of which was available to any Chinese citizen over the past 2,000 years and is probably not available today.
The democratic republic of the United States of America may have its faults, faults we all try to correct every day. But we still have freedom, unlike what would have happened had China had its way with the New World half a millennium ago.

We could be Hong Kong. Or far worse, we could be Chinese subjects. Think about that before you vote for more socialism instead of more freedom.
(first published in North State Journal 10/23/19)

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Wednesday, October 16, 2019

The NBA, China, HB2 and Political Economic Warfare

Forgive many people in North Carolina if they view the current NBA drama in China with a certain sense of schadenfreude.
They deserve it, they say.
The NBA abruptly canceled the 2017 All-Star Game scheduled to be played in Charlotte because of their opposition to H.B. 2, otherwise known as the “bathroom bill.” The NBA played up their reputation as “social warriors” willing to use their prestige, and business, to help the oppressed wherever they saw it be it public accommodations, rebel flags or confederate monuments.
The political economic warfare loss to North Carolina business was estimated to be $100 million. No one in the NBA or advocacy groups supporting genderless bathroom accommodation disagreed with political economic warfare when they did it to North Carolina. It was viewed as “just punishment” for the state of North Carolina for passing terrible unfair discriminatory legislation, even though the boycott wound up hurting thousands of hard-working middle-class folks in Charlotte who would have benefited financially from the All-Star festivities.
Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey recently tweeted the following seemingly innocuous statement regarding Hong Kong and China: “Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong.”
Good for him. Another case of the NBA using their prestige and business to help the oppressed, only this time in Hong Kong, right?
Not so fast. The initial reaction of the NBA was to retract all public comments supporting Hong Kong freedom, including Mr. Morey’s tweet, so they would not offend the ruling communist Chinese authorities.
Golden State coach Steve Kerr said no one ever asks him about human rights oppression in China so apparently it doesn’t bother him either.
The NBA gets revenues exceeding $4 billion annually from China. Nike gets 20% of its $35 billion in revenue, or $7 billion, from China. Fear of losing money is what caused the abrupt about-face over Mr. Morey’s support of freedom in his Hong Kong tweet. Nothing else.
Should the NBA or any major corporation have qualms about doing business in a country with a long history of horrendous human rights abuses and oppression among many other transgressions such as being the major contributor in the world to carbon pollution? Should the NBA or any business stay silent when they see injustice or keep their mouth shut to protect their bottom line of profit and loss statements?
More than 65 million Chinese citizens have been executed or buried alive since the communists took control in 1949. If there ever was a country to boycott because of their suppression of freedom, China would top the list.
The people of Hong Kong enjoyed democratic freedom until the “Handover of 1997” when the UK relinquished control of Hong Kong to China. The Hong Kong freedom fighters are no different from American colonists who disagreed with the heavy-handed rule of King George III.
They want freedom, period. Hong Kong protestors are waving American flags for goodness sakes.
Is the NBA willing to be a “social warrior” for freedom around the globe? Or will they turn a blind eye to the human rights abuses of Chinese communist rule for the past 70 years to keep selling their games and jerseys to Chinese customers?
Dealing with China while ignoring their past and present oppression is not unlike British textile merchants who had no problem with American slavery as long as they could get American cotton for their products.
Maybe the Chinese dictatorial authorities will ban the NBA from China if LeBron James and Zion Williamson stand up for freedom for Hong Kong. How odd would it be if future historians look back to 2019 and say that one of the triggers that led to the dissolution of Communist China was a full-scale revolt by 330 million Chinese basketball fans once the government banned the NBA because they could not see LeBron and Zion dunk anymore.
Call it the second “shot heard around the world.” If the NBA truly stands for freedom, maybe it will happen.
(first published in North State Journal 10/16/19)

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Wednesday, October 9, 2019

America Should Have Many More Billionaires, Not Less

Democrat presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders tweeted this out last week before he entered the hospital with a heart ailment:
“There should be no billionaires!”
He is wrong. There are close to 585 billionaires in America today. America should strive to have more billionaires in America. Many more.
China is next with 476 billionaires, despite their so-called “communist” system. India has 131 and Germany has 114; there are about 1,000 billionaires sprinkled in the other 191 countries.
What does it mean when a person is able to amass a fortune over $1 billion? It means that they probably started a ground-breaking company such as Jeff Bezos did with Amazon, usually out of nothing other than a pipe dream in their head, and then executed a business plan worldwide to provide a product or service millions and billions of people across the globe want to buy.
It doesn’t mean they “stole billions” from the poor or the oppressed. Stealing would be too much hard work; selling things people want to buy voluntarily is so much easier, and safer, than stealing.
Having billionaires succeed in America means their operational headquarters will be in America where they hire thousands of American citizens to sell and distribute their product. These people get paid by billionaires in salaries and health and retirement benefits which they use to live good lives, raise families and pay taxes on their income here in America, not elsewhere.
Mr. Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have the childish notion that rich people are taking the very food out of the mouths of poor people to stay rich as if we are living in some Dickens novel. Worse, they think that Robin Hood and Santa Claus are role models for federal budgeting and tax policy.
A billionaire cannot possibly consume $1 billion worth of food, clothing, cars or any other material good any human could possibly want in a year, a decade or a lifetime. One billion dollars would buy 333 million $3 burgers, to give one absurd example.
What do billionaires do with their money above meeting their basic human needs?
After paying their employees, they “pay” the rest of us to provide things for them and the rest of the country and world.
They buy expensive mansions at resort areas from Florida to California. Each time they buy a new 50,000-square-foot mansion, they hire contractors who then hire hundreds of construction workers who put in gold-plated porcelain sinks and air-conditioned dog houses for their favorite beloved poodle.
They buy expensive cars and jets and pay expert mechanics to keep those finely tuned machines running. Not to mention the hundreds of people who are employed by the manufacturers that make the cars and jets in the first place.
Wealthy people help make other people wealthy through their investments in new companies. They invest in companies they think will be profitable one day, although there is never a guarantee of success. Win or lose in their investments, the billionaires’ money goes to pay thousands of people in the new companies to do their jobs which provide salaries, pensions and health care coverage to an entirely new set of people outside of their main line of business.
The “worst” thing they can do is put it in a savings or checking account at the local bank. Which winds up going to help a regular person get a mortgage to buy their house or a loan to start their business.
When they die, they set up charitable foundations that build hospitals, universities, medical centers or make grants to help people in need the world over.
Rich people take money from customers all over the world and then basically “give” it to the rest of us through the free market system.
Mr. Sanders and Ms. Warren want Americans to believe they are modern-day Robin Hoods who will steal from the rich to give to the poor.
Or Santa Claus who somehow brings free toys to everyone each Christmas.

(first published in North State Journal 10/9/19)

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Wednesday, October 2, 2019

Can Republicans win back the African American vote?

You might be scratching your head and asking: “When did the GOP ever have the African American vote to begin with?”
The Republican Party has been joined at the hip of African American freedom since before the Civil War. The same strands of philosophical belief that underpinned Republican belief then — freedom, equality, individual responsibility and opportunity for everyone in a vibrant free-market economy — underpin the Republican Party today in clear contradistinction to the freedom-crushing socialist policies of the modern Democrat Party.
Young African Americans are unaware of the close historical tie between the Republican Party and the first civil rights movement in America for many of their ancestors. They have been taught and told that Republicans support only old rich white men and big business and could care less about justice and equal rights under the law.
A young African American student said I was the first white Republican she had ever met and talked to in-depth. She was 21 years old at the time. “I grew up in a little rural town in eastern North Carolina. I went to an almost all-black high school in Wilmington, and I am about to graduate from North Carolina A&T University. Where would I have met a white Republican to talk to about political philosophy anywhere along the way, Mr. Hill?”
Had there been no Republican Party running the country after the Civil War, Southern Democrats never would have allowed even the brief decade or so of freedom and enfranchisement for former slaves during the 19th century.
Republicans in Congress passed the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery in 1865; the 14th Amendment, which granted full citizenship rights and protections to 4 million former slaves; and the 15th Amendment, which prevented states from denying voting rights for black citizens.
A Republican Congress overrode President Andrew Johnson’s veto of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 which eradicated laws in the South that prevented blacks from owning property, making contracts and filing lawsuits.
Former Union general and two-term Republican President Ulysses S. Grant was so committed to protecting the freedom of the former slaves he sent federal troops into states such as Louisiana and Mississippi to annihilate white supremacy groups like the KKK, White Line and White League that were not only suppressing the black vote but killing thousands of innocent citizens in the process.
Once black voters were protected at the voting booth, more than 2,000 black men were elected to serve in public elective office across the South during Reconstruction, every one of them Republican. More than 600 were elected to state legislatures. Two black U.S. senators were sent from Mississippi; 16 black congressmen were elected from other states.
Back then, Republicans could count on nearly every Southern black vote in every election and received most of the black vote until 1936. Republicans running for president today are lucky to get 5% of the black vote.
If a Republican presidential candidate could ever garner the support of 18-20% of African American voters nationwide — 6% more than Bob Dole received in 1996 — it would be impossible for a Democrat candidate to win the White House in 2020 or any year thereafter.
Younger African Americans are not as monolithically Democrat as their parents and grandparents; 15% of black voters are registered unaffiliated, most of whom are under the age of 40. They can see the failure of massive government programs, albeit well-intentioned, to help many in the African American community as well as anyone.
As a senior black Republican adviser has said, “African American voters have to like Republicans first before they will listen to any of their policies or targeted political messages. Who will be those Republicans?”

Perhaps a look back into the intertwined history of the Republican Party and African Americans will give common ground to begin those friendships and discussions. Times change and so do political preferences; nothing stays the same forever when it comes to politics in America.

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