SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT

Many years ago, a great hitter named Paul Waner was nearing the end of his long career. He entered a ballgame with 2,999 hits -- one hit away from the landmark total of 3,000, which so many hitters want to reach, but which relatively few actually do reach. Waner hit a ball that the fielder did not handle cleanly but the official scorer called it a hit, making it Waner's 3,000th. Paul Waner then sent word to the official scorer that he did not want that questionable hit to be the one that put him over the top. The official scorer reversed himself and called it an error. Later Paul Waner got a clean hit for number 3,000.

What reminded me of this is the great fervor that many seem to feel over the prospect of the first black President of the United States. No doubt it is only a matter of time before there is a black president, just as it was only a matter of time before Paul Waner got his 3,000th hit. The issue is whether we want to reach that landmark so badly that we are willing to overlook how questionably that landmark is reached. Paul Waner had too much pride to accept a scratch hit.

Choosing a President of the United States is a lot more momentous than a baseball record. We the voters need to have far more concern about who we put in that office that holds the destiny of a nation and of generations yet unborn. There is no reason why someone as arrogant, foolishly clever and ultimately dangerous as Barack Obama should become president -- especially not at a time when the threat of international terrorists with nuclear weapons looms over 300 million Americans. Many people seem to regard elections as occasions for venting emotions, like cheering for your favorite team or choosing a Homecoming Queen. The three leading candidates for their party's nomination are being discussed in terms of their demographics -- race, sex and age -- as if that is what the job is about. One of the painful aspects of studying great catastrophes of the past is discovering how many times people were preoccupied with trivialities when they were teetering on the edge of doom.

The demographics of the presidency are far less important than the momentous weight of responsibility that office carries. Just the power to nominate federal judges to trial courts and appellate courts across the country, including the Supreme Court, can have an enormous impact for decades to come. There is no point feeling outraged by things done by federal judges, if you vote on the basis of emotion for those who appoint them.Barack Obama has already indicated that he wants judges who make social policy instead of just applying the law. He has already tried to stop young violent criminals from being tried as adults. Although Senator Obama has presented himself as the candidate of new things -- using the mantra of "change" endlessly -- the cold fact is that virtually everything he has said about domestic policy is straight out of the 1960s and virtually everything he says about foreign policy is straight out of the 1930s. Protecting criminals, attacking business, increasing government spending, promoting a sense of envy and grievance, raising taxes on people who are productive and subsidizing those who are not -- all this is a re-run of the 1960s. We paid a terrible price for such 1960s notions in the years that followed, in the form of soaring crime rates, double-digit inflation and double-digit unemployment.

During the 1960s, ghettoes across the countries were ravaged by riots from which many have not fully recovered to this day. The violence and destruction were concentrated not where there was the greatest poverty or injustice but where there were the most liberal politicians, promoting grievances and hamstringing the police. Internationally, the approach that Senator Obama proposes -- including the media magic of meetings between heads of state -- was tried during the 1930s. That approach, in the name of peace, is what led to the most catastrophic war in human history. Everything seems new to those too young to remember the old and too ignorant of history to have heard about it.

The Author, Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute and author of Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy.

HOW did things get so MESSED UP?

I got this reply in an email the other day in regards to an EMail I had sent about no more "In God We Trust" on currency, etc.

HOW did things get so messed up? When did it start, and who started it? Have we been slowly taken over and had all of our thoughts and rights taken over and changed by some mysterious source?

Right after our founding fathers decided to establish this country, and on our money place the phrase, that some OTHER source started working to take it off. There is a right and left and a good and bad. Is there always opposition to anything that takes place? When did SOMETHING become so powerfull that it can change almost anything.

Are atheists that powerfull, or is it the ACLU that is "protecting" all of our freedoms, and interpreting all of our laws in one way or another.

IN GOD WE TRUST, what should it be if not that? There was a TV show years ago, Who Do You Trust, I think it was, they never decided, as I recall.

Why can't we trust GOD? We know primarily who we CAN'T trust, at least most of the time, and with total certainty. I can't think of anyone I can trust with 100% certainty, other than GOD, so why not use the phrase IN GOD WE TRUST.

TRUST, there were Savings and Trust companies, we trust banks, generally, but they failed at one time, and, I think, once you lose your "trust" in someone, it is difficult, or can never be regained, it is unrepairable or non repairable, "I can never trust you again."

So we have IN and WE, which by themselves are little two letter words. Alone they don't mean much but put in that phrase, they have deep meaning IN God ........... WE Trust, four words, 12 letters, but a whole world of meaning, and they harm no one, yet they cause so much consternation in some... how can they, that do not believe in GOD, be so much stronger than those of us who DO believe there is a God.

The new Dollar coin does not have that inscription upon it, so if offered one, by a bank or anyone, just refuse it, and ask for a dollar bill, or change to make a dollar. Take that dollar bill, or that dollars worth of change, and buy a RED arm bracelet, and wear it, for our troops and armed forces, show them we TRUST and believe in them, and appreciate the sacrifices they are making so that all of us, including those who deleted the phrase from out dollar coin, can live free and out of harms way.