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Defending the American Dream-
Wisconsin Summit

When: Saturday, February 9th, 2008
Where: Country Springs Hotel, Pewaukee

For additional information call 414-475-2975

To register: www.defendingthedream.org

Registration is $29.00 (includes lunch and closing reception)

Economist Tyler Cowen of George Mason University has a column discussing economic issues with the New York Times. In his current issue he discusses research on the impact of cold weather on fatalities. Some bad, though not unexpected weather for those of us living in the frozen tundra:

Spells of extreme cold kill over 27,000 Americans each year, or about 700 people each very cold day. Heat waves may receive more publicity, but it turns out that cold periods — days with an average temperature below 30 degrees —have more significant and longer-lasting effects on human mortality. More people die in cold periods than in homicides.

Extreme cold brings cardiovascular stress as human bodies struggle to adjust to the temperature; many of the deaths in these periods come through heart attacks. Heat waves tend to kill people who were already weakened and would have died soon anyway; cold periods bring additional people to the verge of death.

When retired people move to a warmer state, their life expectancy rises dramatically. In fact, 8 to 15 percent of the increase in American life expectancy over the last 30 years comes from people moving to warmer climates, according to research done by two economics professors, Olivier Deschenes at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Enrico Moretti, at the University of California, Berkeley.

Greg Mankiw has a great post on his blog about the differences between conservative and liberal economists regarding the policy implications of economic theory. I’m going to quote it in full, hope he doesn’t mind!

The right sees large deadweight losses associated with taxation and, therefore, is worried about the growth of government as a share in the economy. The left sees smaller elasticities of supply and demand and, therefore, is less worried about the distortionary effect of taxes.

The right sees externalities as an occasional market failure that calls for government intervention, but sees this as relatively rare exception to the general rule that markets lead to efficient allocations. The left sees externalities as more pervasive.

The right sees competition as a pervasive feature of the economy and market power as typically limited both in magnitude and duration. The left sees large corporations with substantial degrees of monopoly power that need to be checked by active antitrust policy.

The right sees people as largely rational, doing the best the can given the constraints they face. The left sees people making systematic errors and believe that it is the government role’s to protect people from their own mistakes.

The right sees government as a terribly inefficient mechanism for allocating resources, subject to special-interest politics at best and rampant corruption at worst. The left sees government as the main institution that can counterbalance the effects of the all-too-powerful marketplace.

There is one last issue that divides the right and the left—perhaps the most important one. That concerns the issue of income distribution. Is the market-based distribution of income fair or unfair, and if unfair, what should the government do about it? That is such a big topic that I will devote the entire next lecture to it.

It’s “Freshman Discover There Is A Library” week …

Or, alternatively, “Early Winter Break for Comm Majors” …

My last final is NEXT Saturday morning. It’s going to be a long week!

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I was walking home from the law library at 7:30pm last night, and it was very dark out.

I started down my side street, Twentieth, towards my apartment. I paused for a moment at a particular juncture, swiveled my head, and counted seven different blue light telephones that I could see from that spot.

Thanks for all you do to keep us safe, DPS.

On this day in 1517, Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Wittenburg Church, thus launching the Protestant Reformation: Word Alone, Faith Alone, Grace Alone.

If you hear my humming A MIGHTY FORTRESS walking the halls of Sensenbrenner today, now you know why.

As you may know, today is All Hallows Eve. Tomorrow is All Saints Day (a Holy Day of Obligation for all you Catholics). Consider Chuck Colson’s suggestions for celebration: reading the history of the heroes of the faith.

Today “Il Papa,” Pope Benedict XVI announced (English) the appointment of William P. Callahan, OFM Conv. as auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee (Archdiocesan Release). Fr. Callahan currently serves as a spiritual director at the Pontifical North American College in Rome (where Archbishop Dolan once served as rector); before that he did two tours of duty at St. Josaphat here in town.

Fr. Callahan was, for a time, a member of the Archdiocese’s College of Consultors, which hopefully gave him some good insights on internal administration. He also demonstrated his administrative and fundraising prowess as rector of the Basilica of St. Josaphat during its renovation, a $7.5 million project. While rector of the Basilica, he served as chaplain to the Milwaukee chapter of the Catholic Medical Guild (a good sign). Though himself a Franciscan, Fr. Callahan has degrees from universities run by the Jesuits and the Basilian Fathers (there are several St. Michael’s graduates on MU’s faculty).

Moreover, the word on the Catholic blog street is positive. It sounds like Archbishop Dolan basically got to pick his man (Archbishop Dolan was at the PNAC in January - his time as archbishop overlapped with Callahan’s time at the Basilica for a short while as well):

Though long in coming, the requesting bishops are finding that the wait is worth it — by and large, they’re getting their choices. And in keeping with the trend, a favorite of Archbishop Timothy Dolan has been recalled from Rome to assist the Milwaukee prelate….
Well-loved both by the Milwaukeeans and the Gianicolo crowd — and known to enjoy Dolan’s particular trust and esteem — the appointee is preceded by a sterling reputation; as one of Callahan’s friends once summed up the bishop-elect, “I don’t know anyone who loves being a priest more than Bill.”

There will hopefully be more reporting done in coming days on our community’s new bishop, but we have every reason to expect a good leader.

P.S. I have been meaning to point out as well that the signs from Superior are good. The Catholic Diocese of Superior, which covers much of Northwestern Wisconsin, saw a new bishop seated earlier this fall. The local Catholic Herald reports:

[Bishop Peter F.] Christensen also talked about the proclamation of faith and oath of obedience he had to make before his ordination. Included was a pledge to be faithful in carrying out the ministry that has been entrusted to him and to ensure that the truths and teachings of the church are handed down pure. He added that he delights in these promises.

Part of his mission as a bishop, Christensen said, will be to show particular affection to all priests and deacons, to all men and women religious. “I will likewise take great care to promote spiritual vocations.”

He will also recognize and promote ministries of lay people and especially promote the work of evangelization and will encourage family life. “I will stand with you to build strong families in faith,” he said.

Good signs, and good luck to the new bishop up north.

Today our Operation Red White and Blue rally was held outside the ROTC complex on 16th and Clybourn in support of Marquette University’s ROTC students and program. All in all, it was a smashing success and I am very proud of all who have showed their support through the rally and through the ongoing online petition.

I arrived at the Navy side of the ROTC complex a little before 11:30 this morning to secure a spot on the stairs where I anticipated the leftists would have wanted to sit. Minutes after I arrived, an SUV of Army officers drove in front of the complex and waved. I realized that they might not know which side I was on so I held up a “KEEP ROTC” sign to the cheers of the vehicle’s inhabitants.

The leftists arrived shortly thereafter on the Army side of the ROTC complex on Clybourn. They had a rolled up American flag that they let lie on the ground while they were setting up … I don’t think they intentially tried to disrespect it but clearly they do not know flag etiquette. They certainly don’t know how to make signs, either: their 3-4 signs had about 15 small words in them.

Ours - thank you Brent Downs, Pat Fields and Justin Phillips - were colorful and brilliant. I believe we had over fifteen. Marquette students and two Leadership Institute friends / field reps - Nate Nelson and Anne Lee - started coming around 11:40 or so. From 12:00 to about 12:40 the pro-ROTC and the anti-ROTC groups were on Clybourn.

It was a joy to see ROTC students pass by and wave, or in a couple cases drive by with flags, or also to see them peer out the windows of the ROTC complex. As we repeatedly told the media, the ROTC students could not be out there defending themselves against the anti-ROTC crowd, so it was our duty to defend them.

Talk about a Demographic Divide!

I am always amazed by the inability of radical leftists to get anybody under 50 years old to their events. Probably the most important statistic of the day is that a mere 3-4 students maximum at any given time participated in the anti-ROTC rally while about 20-30 students at any given point were with the pro-ROTC rally. The rest were the typical crowd of anti-war senior citizens (literally) who must have averaged, between the 10-12 of them, 65 years old.

I would like to say that I was very honored that our event was very bipartisan with the former President of the Fair Wisconsin chapter, Jess, helping support the ROTC students. A friend with whom I have had a couple classes, I mentioned to her that I could literally not think of a single liberal on campus who had ever voiced to me the opinion that MU should not have ROTC. She concurred.

Frankly, it is reflective in who showed up for the event. Twenty to thirty students from the beginning to end (some left and others arrived) actively rallied with us to support ROTC. One has to be a bit deranged to blame ROTC students for the government’s problems, including in Iraq, which I believe even most liberals agree with. Opposite our group were ancient 1960’s people who haven’t gotten over Vietnam.

And the divide was obvious in all of our interactions. I got into it with one old woman who came up to me and told me that we were disrespecting their protest (by protesting against them, I suppose) and I told her that she was disrespecting Marquette’s ROTC students. She claimed to know Marquette ROTC students but (senioritis?) couldn’t name any when asked. Eventually, bitter, she walked away.

I thoughtfully reminded her that “The sixties are over, ma’am!”

Marching up 16th Street, Down Wisconsin Ave

At 12:40, the leftists began their “march” westward on Clybourn in order to go up 16th and then down Wisconsin Avenue. I really wasn’t planning on having the counter protest go beyond 12:30, so it was wonderful to have it extend beyond. Jess, God bless her, asked whether we were going to follow them and then said that she was going to. We all decided to continue.

So, we followed the archaic senior citizens with their Middle East rally-styled massive picture of Franz-something up 16th St. We had to stop so as to not run into them, but we cheered loudly to the honking cars and picked up eager students along the way to join the counter protest. Bewildered students watched as a dozen 1960’s radicals were followed by 20 or so of their fellow classmates supporting ROTC.

On the corner of 16th and Wisconsin Avenue, a non-MU student - a veteran, if I remember correctly - walking on campus loudly denounced the leftists. I am glad that he was able to see us following them. We all proceeded to the front of the Engineering building where the leftists stopped to scream about ROTC. A number of students watching the event took out their camera phones to take pictures.

Ending up at O’Hara Hall

After the pass-period between classes around 1:00, students trickled down a bit on campus, but we kept following the leftists down Wisconsin Avenue. After a while they stopped trying to get into arguments with the pro-ROTC crowd (near Cudahy or so). Maybe they were ready for their afternoon naps. We then circled around the Law School, at which point someone mentioned that we ought to sing “God Bless America.”

I ran into the Law School to print out a couple copies of it and ran back out to find that the leftists had gathered on top of the hill in front of O’Hara with their obnoxiously long banner and Franz posters. We did about three or so renditions of “God Bless America” before somebody on their side thought it would be brilliant to sing “We Shall Overcome”. No kidding! What are they going to overcome? Forgetting to turn off their left blinkers?

Some oldster who had earlier tried to tell me that ROTC was against Catholic doctrine tried to get into O’Hara. Hilariously, some lackey inside held the door shut while the guy tried to get in. As someone mentioned earlier tonight, “Talk about straight out of the sixties.” We stayed in front of O’Hara until about 1:45, at which point I disbanded our group; the anti-ROTC people planned to go till 5:00.

Who was behind the protest?

Clearly the promotion flyer was misleading. There was not a single Muslim student there, and frankly if I were a member of the MSA I would investigate who put their name on the flyer. Same with J.U.S.T.I.C.E. - a couple of their fellow travelers, but I wouldn’t even say 3-4 individuals are representative of the group.

The same 1947 (approximate) Marquette graduate who tried later to get into O’Hara Hall had earlier, randomly, announced to our group that “G. Simon Harak did not help organize us!” Fair enough. That still doesn’t answer whether he inspired (i.e. suggested) the event, including the “peace activist” of choice - Franz-something.

Nor does it preclude his involvement in the future: as I’ve told people, he doesn’t quite have tenure yet, but clearly the history of Dan Maguire suggests what can happen when he does. Though, I am increasingly convinced that there is no way that he could get ROTC booted off campus, which he almost assuredly opposes.

Maybe the best answer is Who was not behind the rally? The answer: if turnout is any indication, the vast majority of the Marquette student body. The leftists had a first rate chance to denounce, over a five-hour period, the Marquette ROTC program and only got 4 students to show up.

Conclusion

I’d like to say “Thank you” to the ROTC students. You are role models for whom the University is and should be proud to call fellow students and fellow Americans. I have yet to meet, if I remember back on my experience at Marquette, a ROTC student who I believe dishonored himself or herself or the causes for which they championed. It is an honor to know a number of them.

As I said, the numbers speak for themselves. Four anti-ROTC students against 20-30 pro-ROTC students. I guess we know where the student body stands on ROTC. And, if the ROTC petition is any indication, what a few faculty members and Administrators think. We’ll keep the petition open until next week to let others sign up who have not yet.

One of our posters today read: “ROTC: YOU FIGHT FOR US, WE’LL FIGHT FOR YOU.” I hope ROTC students know this. They will always have friends and allies, students and alumni, in the Marquette University family.

In addition to our Rally for ROTC tomorrow and the Support ROTC Petition, here’s another way members of the Marquette community can support our troops:

Stop in Marquette’s Alumni Memorial Union tomorrow, Friday October 26th anytime between 10 AM and 7:30 PM and sign thank you cards and banners to be sent to members of our Armed Forces.

The student organization Silver Wings is hosting this event and will take care of shipping your messages of appreciation.