Author Archives: ptmadmin

This week I have more thoughts on nanny state nonsense.  State Senator Ben McAdams from Salt Lake City has announced that he’ll sponsor a bill making it a crime to leave a child alone in a car.  His bill would make a parent criminally negligent for endangerment of a child.

While you’re soaking that in, let’s go over his motive.  Last year, in 2010, 49 children died as a result of being left unattended in a car.  We can presume that those deaths occurred on hot summer days.  That number of children – 49 – was a nationwide number.  Forty-nine kids, out of over 100 million of them, died.  Of course, just one death is sad.  But I’m wondering if 49 deaths out of a possible 100 million, none of those deaths in Utah last year, is the sort of compelling reason to move a new law? read more

Over the weekend, Richard Davis, chairman of the Utah County Democratic Party, wrote an op-ed bemoaning why Democrats get so little support in the state. He begins by drawing an analogy to shopping in Russia where consumers only get one choice of product, and then says that Utah politics is like that – that we only get one choice.

He blames the convention system, in part, for this dilemma. He wonders why the few get to select the few while hundreds of thousands of Utahns are left in the lurch. He then grumbles that voters shouldn’t vote straight party tickets and that voters should take a good look at Democratic candidates.

He goes on to defend Utah Democrats as equally pro-family and equally committed to moral standards. He says Utah Democrats are fiscal conservatives.

And then he writes something that, I think, is very curious. He writes, “Voters need to understand that a two-party system is very fragile. The very existence of a choice is not automatic…If good Democratic candidates continue to lose because voters don’t give them a chance to prove themselves, it will be harder to encourage good people to run again in the future and voters will be back to the no-choice situation…That’s why even Republican voters should vote for some Democrats in Utah County in order to make sure Republican legislators aren’t neglectful of average voters.”

Okay…this might be the shortest Mero Moment in history. Here’s what I have to say to Mr. Davis and any other Utah Democrat who is tired of losing to Republicans: that’s your answer to renewing a vibrant two-party system in Utah? Just vote for a Democrat whether or not you believe in their platform and positions? Really?

This is exactly why the two-party system is in jeopardy, if it is, in Utah: a wholesale lack of leadership among Democrats.

I have said this before. If Utah Democrats want to regain political power they must relate to the average Utahn. In this case, at minimum, they must separate themselves from national Democrats and from radical social and socialist agendas. It’s that simple. A party is more than one candidate. Placing a candidate’s name on a party label means the candidate supports his or her party. If that party is the party of Obama and Pelosi, then a Utah Democrat shouldn’t be surprised that his or her candidacy is immediately marginalized in this state.

It’s not good enough for a candidate to be a self-described “conservative” Democrat. That doesn’t mean anything. You must be a real conservative, period. Understand that fact and Utah Democrats will, once again, become relevant.

I’m Paul Mero. Thanks for listening.

Why would anybody want to read the Utah State Constitution? We all know that only the United States Constitution is important! In fact, doesn’t the recent Prop 8 decision in California prove that state constitutions are meaningless these days? Well, no. Our state constitution is every bit as meaningful as our national one.

So…who’s read our state constitution? Have any of you school teachers read it? If not, my guess is that our kids haven’t read it either.

Well, our Sutherland Institute has a good deal for you: send us your contact info and we’ll send you a nice, clean copy of the Utah State Constitution. But before I give you our contact info, let me share some tidbits with you.

Its Preamble begins: “Grateful to Almighty God for life and liberty, we, the people of Utah, in order to secure and perpetuate the principles of free government, do ordain and establish this Constitution.”

Right there alone, we could talk for days about its meaning. You mean God gives us life and liberty? If so, what do those look like to God? For surely we don’t want to get that wrong, now do we?

We also have “inherent and inalienable rights” under our Utah State Constitution. Here is Article 1, section 1: “All men have the inherent and inalienable rights to enjoy and defend their lives and liberties; to acquire, possess and protect property; to worship according to the dictates of their consciences; to assemble peaceably, protest against wrongs, and petition for redress of grievances; to communicate freely their thoughts and opinions, being responsible for the abuse of that right.”

Are you telling me that I have to be responsible for my thoughts and opinions? Good to know.

Our state constitution is a remarkable historical document on top of listing our rights and the limitations of state and local government. We need to remember that this state constitution was more or less thrust upon Utahns by the federal government at a time when Utahns weren’t all that popular. So in it’s language are several odd references to the power of the Church, meaning Mormon Church, and conversely, some clearly-stated protections for the dominant religion.

Another section worth mentioning given recent headlines is Article 12, section 19. Under the subtitle of “Blacklisting forbidden,” it reads, “Each person in Utah [note that it doesn’t say “citizen”] is free to obtain and enjoy employment whenever possible, and a person or corporation, or their agent, servant, or employee may not maliciously interfere with any person from obtaining employment or enjoying employment already obtained from any person or corporation.”

We ought to remind the employees over at Workforce Services of this provision.

If you would like a copy of this fascinating document…free…just drop Sutherland Institute a line – either online at sutherlandinstitute.org or by calling our office at 801-355-1272…that’s 801-355-1272.

Here’s one last quote from the same Article, section 20: “It is the policy of the state of Utah that a free market system shall govern trade and commerce in this state to promote the dispersion of economic and political power and the general welfare of all the people.”

Pretty cool, huh?

I’m Paul Mero. Thanks for listening.

American culture has been structured around the ideal of an educated citizenry. This ideal holds that a free society requires educated people and that educated people create free societies. No less than Thomas Jefferson has written that, “Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.”

There are lots of ways we could go with this thought. We could challenge it – we could ask if Jefferson’s opinion is true: do well-educated people create free societies? In our day and age, well-educated people seem to be the ones more inclined to create Big Government and it’s the more humble people, the God-fearing people, the less educated people who seem to appreciate less government and real freedom.

Or we could approach Jefferson’s opinion from a point of pedagogy: does public education create the sort of educated people who are able to create free societies? We could even challenge Jefferson’s ideal of self-government in light of all of our modern personal dysfunctions and addictions.

There are many ways to consider his words.

The Boston Globe reports that two professors from the University of Michigan have come up with even another way to test Jefferson’s words. They wonder if facts even matter at all any more. They think that the desire to be right outweighs the desire to be factual for most people. They say that when most people have one opinion that is countered by facts, these people not only ignore the facts to hang on to their personal opinion they actually deny the facts.

These researchers call this phenomenon “backfire” – the idea that it’s absolutely threatening to admit you’re wrong. They say that it’s a natural defense mechanism to avoid cognitive dissonance.

If these guys are right, it might explain an awful lot about politics today. For instance, it might explain why anti-immigration zealots continue to see undocumented immigrants as “criminals” even after it’s been explained that entering the country illegally the first time is a civil violation, like speeding, not a criminal violation of the law. That’s a fact and yet many anti-immigration zealots simply refuse to acknowledge it. The result is a less-free society, in my opinion.

But we need to be careful about how far we take the conclusions of these Michigan researchers – because facts are just facts. If facts are not accompanied by context, they could lead us equally down the primrose path away from freedom. My liberal and libertarian friends are notorious for doing this. On the right we see it with the “rule of law” crowd: doesn’t the law say this? Well, that’s a fact isn’t it? And on the left we see it with anti-poverty people: just give the guy some money…he’s poor…all he needs is money to make him whole. Of course, neither of those opinions is true but each is based on a fact – yes, the law does say this and yes, the guy doesn’t have money.

We also have to avoid confusing a personal belief with cognitive dissonance. Liberals most often can’t stand that many Americans hold certain political beliefs based on their very private religious beliefs – as if liberals don’t do the same thing with their worship of science and anti-religious beliefs – they don’t like that religious people have difficulty being persuaded by the facts.

I wish that the first thing every American school kid would be taught and learn is context for one’s intellectual exercises. The basis for our ideas is much more important than our ideas. Another way to say this is that universal truth is more important than momentary facts. For instance, it matters so much more that we view undocumented immigrants as we view ourselves than it does that they commit a civil infraction. Context matters. Context also keeps us free. Responsible citizens should seek facts, but they should love truth even more. Only then will Thomas Jefferson’s words have meaning.

I’m Paul Mero. Thanks for listening.

It never dawned on me that there could be a liberal sports writer. Sports are pretty cut and dried. I never would have thought that liberalism could invade an arena where politics is meaningless and where human effort alone is the test of what is good.

Sports are about effort, discipline, teamwork, and, of course, winners and losers. But, evidently, according to Amy Donaldson of the Deseret News, sports really aren’t about winning. Outside of randomly quoting Vince Lombardi and John Wooden, she doesn’t really say why sports aren’t about winning. She just knows she hates the whole idea – and she hates it most today in the form of Lebron James.

Ms. Donaldson writes that she was “ashamed” and “embarrassed,” even “humiliated,” for watching “The Decision” by Lebron James. Really? Evidently she’s disappointed about what sports has become – or what we have become and what we have done to sports. She laments, “One of our favorite pastimes is a business.”

Let’s recap the Lebron situation: he became a free agent – meaning he had signed a legal contract to work for his employer and then the contract legally expired; as a talented basketball player, he had his pick of employers; in fact, Lebron is so talented that money isn’t his biggest concern anymore – winning an NBA championship is; he chose to play for another team, a team with which he feels he has the best chance of attaining his personal goal. That’s it. That’s the recap. That’s all that happened.

Now what about that story heaps upon us shame, embarrassment, and humiliation? Yeah, you’re right, nothing – unless you’re a liberal. And Ms. Donaldson is the big, bleeding heart, kind of liberal. So liberal, in fact, that even sports aren’t safe from the pleadings and lamentations of her hypersensitive conscience.

But I should have seen it coming. Ms. Donaldson is a staunch defender of the Utah High School Activities Association – not because it helps to bring out the best in high school athletics, but because it’s the Great Leveler, as she sees it.

The sentimental line about sports having become a business is another clue. Is there something wrong with business? Is there something wrong with a human being using all of her faculties to make the best out of her life and bless her community and the people she loves? Now I see why Ms. Donaldson hates the race by high school kids (and their evil parents) for athletic scholarships – talented youth using their God-given gifts along with personal resolve to claim a coveted college scholarship must remind her of evil businessmen.

Instead of celebrating what basketball has done for just one more faceless, inner city kid from Akron, Ohio, named Lebron James, Ms. Donaldson is sad for him, for sports, for everyone.

I wonder what she thinks about crazed Olympic athletes who set aside most everything normal in a young boy’s or girl’s life to obsessively focus on sports? And just think how she must feel about the best of the best among these young people using their new status as “gold medalists” to cash in and become a part of the rich and famous! Get off that box of Wheaties, you greedy goose!!

Egalitarianism is a cruel evil. That’s what Ms. Donaldson champions – equality as ideology. Egalitarianism has resulted in more human misery than any other ideology on the face of the Earth – call it Marxism, call it communism, call it perversely Hitleresque – the quest to make “everyone the same” is a blight on human history.

And, yet, we can see it in its infancy – a seemingly innocuous, even virtuous, attitude that winning isn’t everything, that sports shouldn’t be a business, that a man’s own talents don’t really belong to him but to the broader community. Sorry folks, that’s just plain sick.

Vince Lombardi, whose name Ms. Donaldson invokes to correct us selfish people, said this about winning: Beginning his famous speech with the unforgettable lines, “Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all the time thing,” he closes with this impassioned ideal, “I don’t say these things because I believe in the ‘brute’ nature of man or that men must be brutalized to be combative. I believe in God, and I believe in human decency. But I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour – his greatest fulfillment to all he holds dear – is that moment when he has to work his heart out in a good cause and he’s exhausted on the field of battle – victorious.”

Winning has its boundaries. But to say it’s not a vital and constructive part of human nature is to say something that is wholly foreign to every great American, every great citizen of every great country, that has ever existed. We should cherish results of such effort, not condemn them.

I’m Paul Mero. Thanks for listening.

Last week I had the pleasure of interviewing both of Utah’s Republican Senate candidates: Mike Lee and Tim Bridgewater. Both men are smart and appear to be capable candidates. Both men also claim to be philosophical conservatives. But in this day and age, thinking like a conservative sometimes gets mixed up with acting like a libertarian – and any discussion about the war on drugs seems to bring out this point.

Early in our interview, I told each candidate that I would now try to separate their inner conservative from their inner libertarian and asked both of them if they would push to end the war on drugs. Both candidates said they would not. Both men said they would not push to make illicit drugs legal.

While we didn’t have time to delve deeper into the subject or even their deeper opinions on the subject, I was pleased to hear them reject the idea that America ought to legalize drugs.

Now, even as I say that, I realize that lots and lots of very hard drugs are legal today. We call them “prescription drugs” and Utahns seem to be up to their gills in pill-popping opportunities to manage personal pain, real or imagined. I also realize that some illegal drugs, such as marijuana, are pretty docile compared to other legal drugs and even liquor, which is widely available and regulated (and taxed) by the state. The issue of our drug laws isn’t without its ironies and contradictions – but those exist mostly because human beings aren’t without their own personal ironies and contradictions.

This world – this mortality we live in – is all about money and it would seem that the United States of America and its free market economy would be well-equipped to be the leader in transacting a fair and regulated drug market, if we were to legalize drugs. Money is what makes the illegal drug business so enticing and making certain drugs illegal is what drives up the cost of these drugs making them more and more lucrative of a market for anyone to enter. Evidently, the money is so good in the illegal drug trade that the reward is worth the risk for lots and lots of people.

For decades, the United States has been at war against the illegal drug trade. We have spent hundreds of billions of dollars trying to stop the flow of narcotics into this country and, by and large, we’ve failed. It just isn’t that difficult for a young person to get their hands on all sorts of illegal drugs – even in pastoral settings such as Logan, Utah.

So why continue with this charade? Well, I’ll tell you why.

These drugs are bad for you – not in that long-term, even second-hand, way bad-for-you, but they’re immediately bad for you. You are detrimentally impaired the very moment you ingest currently illegal narcotics. It’s hard to see, it’s hard to think, it’s hard to communicate, it’s hard to take a test, it’s hard to drive, it’s hard to even do the basic things of life such as make it to the bathroom before you soil your pants.

To legalize these drugs is to affirm and approve of these human results – and that’s simply irrational decision-making for a policy maker. “Let’s see, I have a choice to either help my neighbors to make sober, rational choices in life, or I can encourage them to make delusional and irrational choices by permissioning them to use hard drugs? Let’s see, which policy makes Utah a better place to live, work, and raise a family?”

The ironies and inconsistencies of current drug laws aren’t reasonable excuses to abandon all reason and legalize, but heavily regulate, being stupid. Neither are the admittedly extravagant costs associated with the war on drugs.

The war on drugs is a smart public policy decision. It should be a war against both supply and demand. It should be a war engaged by both government and civilians. It should be a decision as simple as what a loving parent would do – protect their children from evil and conspiring men who want to infect them and addict them to any substance that would keep them from being who they really are, from seeing what is real, and from reaching their fullest potential.

Reasonable people can argue over liquor laws. The public debate over legalizing hard narcotics isn’t even in the same league.

I’m Paul Mero. Thanks for listening.

Every now and then, Sutherland hosts prominent groups of Utahns to help provide us with input and feedback about our work. On one occasion we asked one group what they felt was right with Utah – or what they liked about Utah.

One gentleman, without hesitation, chimed in that he liked Utahns’ strong sense of purpose in terms of seeing themselves as contributors to the world. Another member of the group, in this case an actual outsider from Illinois, said he liked the fact that Utah is a child-rich state. Another person cited our open space and rural communities. One woman added that she appreciates our values-driven approach to life. Still another mentioned our strong work ethic and our commitment to higher education (meaning that parents take a college education seriously).

Interestingly, the outsider spoke up again to include the artistic talent within the state. He said, “I’ve just been overwhelmed by the number of talented young people…You’ve almost got too much of it because there are not enough audiences for them to perform in front of.” Another woman raised the idea of Utah’s multi-lingual concentration as a plus. She observed that BYU teaches more languages than Harvard University, 37 to 32. Whereupon, another member of the group said something that sounded peculiar at the time. He said, “Utah is surprisingly cosmopolitan…people here know the world, I think more than in most states.”

The group discussion took a short detour from there, some seeing the point, others raising a point about Utah’s lack of diversity. But I’ll come back to that. Here are my thoughts about what is right with Utah.

I like that Utah has four distinct seasons. I love spring and fall and I have to admit that I look forward to summer and winter.

I, too, like the strong community feel about Utah. I’m constantly amazed at how many vibrant communities Utah has. I really do feel a sense of awe as I drive out of a canyon into a valley and look down on the sea of homes and businesses that buzz with activity.

I’m greatly impressed that Utahns still have lots of babies. The outsider’s comment about Utah still being child-rich is both accurate and uses the appropriate term. Being “child-rich” is important to any lasting economy.

Of course, I also like the fact that Utah is largely religious. Religious values hold people together, even people of different faiths. The strong religious sense here also allows many people struggling with their faith to enjoy that struggle without getting into too much trouble in their lives.

And I like the fact that our State Legislature works within a context of freedom. It’s not easy for 104 persons to work in behalf of nearly three million of their neighbors. Government can easily get away from its primary role and purpose under these conditions, but our state legislators are able to maintain their focus and benefit Utah by keeping their sense of context – in this case, our freedom. While any number of factions within the nearly three million people in the state will clamor for government to do all sorts of things, I’ve found these 104 legislators to be largely steadfast in protecting the roots of freedom in Utah.

Now, let me return to a previous point. I, too, like the fact that Utah is a cosmopolitan state. Many of our people leave the state for periods of time and almost always end up coming home. I would agree with another member of the group that being cosmopolitan isn’t necessarily diversity. But I don’t care for what “diversity” now means anyway. But I do appreciate the sense of “pluralism” that being cosmopolitan brings us.

Where diversity means to me that values are in conflict, pluralism means to me that even though we’re all different our values are largely the same. And for me anyway, that’s one great measure of a free people and freedom in general. Utah’s homogenous population combined with broad exposure to the world creates a wonderful respect for both other people and unchanging, universal values for a free society.

That’s what I like about Utah. How about you?

I’m Paul Mero. Thanks for listening.