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2005 — The Year of Political Incivility December 29, 2005

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By Jason Williams

Thursday, December 29. 2005

The year began and ended with political incivility in Oregon by liberals.

The political year started with President Bush’s inaugural speech where shouting protesters in the audience did everything possible to stop his speech. The protesters were from Eugene and were able to get great, up-close seat tickets from our Congressman Peter DeFazio. Gee, thanks Pete, for staining an important democratic event with your sour grapes just because your guy did not win the last presidential election.

The shameful treatment of President Bush is the latest and hottest trend of political incivility erupting from the liberal left. A month after the Bush inauguration we had a protester disruption occurrence at the Howard Dean/Richard Perle debate at Pacific University. The event made national news when an irate screaming protester rushed the stage at Richard Perle, throwing his shoe at him. (The Perle protest was just one of many in 2005 across the country; Bill Kristol was hit with a pie at Earlham College, David Horowitz also hit with a pie at Butler University, Patrick Buchanan was splashed with salad dressing at Western Michigan University, and Ann Coulter was harassed by screaming protesters at Kansas University)

Many are surprised to find that the penalty for assaulting a speaker and for disrupting an event can be as small as a $50 fine. It is a great deal for a liberal dissenter, who sees a $50 fine as a great way to ruin an event that took $10,000 to produce.

Portland protesters who rioted during a presidential visit found away to make a profit from breaking the law. They were rewarded with a $300,000 settlement from the city this year. Even after receiving their quarter million dollar prize, they still had the audacity to present a 12-page list of additional demands including prohibiting police from using pepper spray and rubber bullets against future rioters. The list of demands would only make it easier to create conditions for disorder so the protesters can more easily shut down future political events they do not like.

Let’s be clear: These are not acts of civil disobedience, but rather, they are undeniable acts of uncivil political violence. The aim is to forcibly shut up speakers and to rip the freedom of speech from their very throats.

By the middle of the year we had the construction of a McDonalds restaurant in Sisters Oregon that drove the environmentalists and smart growthers insane. Few things in life spell utter evil for liberals like McDonalds, and that becomes infinitely magnified when you erect one where uppity liberals live. So it came as no surprise when the new restaurant was set afire (just like a Starbucks was sabotaged in Portland last year).

Finally, 2005 ended with the charging of seven people involved with eco-terrorism with multiple Oregon connections. They were charged with sabotaging of a meat company (animal rights extremism), torching a tree farm (environmental extremism), toppling a Bonneville dam transmission tower (hydro-power haters?), and arson to a SUV lot (hybrid car fanatics?). No matter how minor a political cause may be, it still rises to the point of justifying terrorist acts with liberals.

From beginning to end, 2005 can be remembered for its liberal political incivility, harassment and violence. Without a doubt, liberals seem to have a monopoly on such political incivility (maybe their ‘end-justifies-the-means’ behavior is a natural outgrowth of their vehement rejection of absolute values?). Oregonians need to oppose such tactics as inherently undemocratic and unacceptable.

‘Cultural Competency’ Bureaucratic Beast Lives on December 28, 2005

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By Dave Mowry

Wednesday, December 28. 2005

When it comes to Cultural Competency, Hasso Herring, editor of the Albany Democrat Herald, said in a May editorial, “Mao had his cultural revolution and Vietnam sent people to re-education camps. Some education leaders in Oregon can’t duplicate those efforts, but they are doing what they can.”

A few months ago Vicki Phillips, Superintendent of Portland Public Schools, re-affirmed her commitment to Cultural Competency (CC). She hired a consultant to do a $15,000 CC assessment of Franklin High School in SE Portland. Next comes CC training that is sure to cost a bundle. I estimate that Portland Public Schools will spend $20,000 just on Franklin High before they are done.

It only makes sense. If you are committed to CC, as Ms. Phillips is, you have to have Culturally Competent teachers, staff, and schools. Multiply $20,000 by the number of schools in the Portland district and you get over a million dollars of precious school funds spent on the initial stage of CC.

Portland is not alone when it comes to CC. The Oregon Department of Education is soon to require all schools to be Culturally Competent. Multiply that $20,000 by all schools in the state and you have millions of dollars that won’t be spent on teaching kids in the classroom.

Once CC does get into the classroom it gets even scarier because the kids will be taught to be Culturally Competent. And what does that mean?

According to Oregon State Education Professor and author Jean Moule in her book, “Cultural Competency, A Primer for Educators” “It is not just a question of if one (Northern Europeans) holds racist attitudes and stereotypes or if one is involved with practices of institutional or cultural racism. We all are.” “Not only is one racist, but also privileged and an “unconscious oppressor” of people of color.”

The University of Oregon is set to roll out its CC plan in January with a CC conference, that I will attend. This plan has already drawn fire from faculty who wrote an open letter to UO President Dave Frohnmayer in May calling the plan “frightening and offensive” and saying that if implemented, the plan will do “immeasurable harm to the University”.

The faculty took issue with “the Orwellian insertion of the undefined political notion of Cultural Competency into every aspect of the administration, teaching and performance evaluation.”

UO Professor Alexander Kleshchev was quoted in the Oregon Daily Emerald, the UO newspaper, that he and other professors were thinking of leaving. “Kleshchev, a Russian immigrant, says the plan conjures up memories of his former homeland. ‘Look, I am personally not going to be interrogated about my thoughts and I am not going to go to reeducation camps either’, alluding to the plans requirement that faculty participate in a summer diversity seminar”. “I’ve had enough of that in my previous life in the Soviet Union, and I just will not have this again. I tried freedom now; I liked it, and I am not about to give it up.”

Just as Oregon gets rid of the failed experiment that is CIM and CAM, the education establishment brings us the cult of Cultural Competency. CIM and CAM was a waste of resources but it did not directly cause any damage. I can’t say the same for Cultural Competency.

Low Unemployment? December 7, 2005

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By Jay Bozievich

Wednesday, December 7. 2005

Sound the trumpets! Beat the drums! Oregon has a 6.0% unemployment rate!

On November 14th, Governor Kulongoski made a personal appearance at the Oregon Employment Department to announce the news that Oregon unemployment rate was down to 4-year low of 6.0%.

Kulongoski crowed to all those gathered, “You have to ask yourself, ‘Is Oregon doing something right?’ And I think it is!”

A better question would be, “What is Oregon doing wrong that our four-year low in unemployment is still a full percentage point above the national average of 5.0%? “ Or, “Why has Oregon had one the highest rates of unemployment for the last five years?”

Even the recent good news of October has Oregon leading all other states in the nation in unemployment except for five, two of which are the hurricane ravaged economies of Louisiana and Mississippi. It has the highest unemployment rate west of the Mississippi River with the exception of Alaska. Granted it is an improvement from having the highest unemployment rate in the nation in 2001, 2002 and 2003 and the second highest in 2004.

It has not always been this way. Oregon had an unemployment rate at or below the national average from 1990 to 1996. So the question could also be what changed in 1990 and what changed in 1996.

1990 was marked be a tax revolt in Oregon known as Measure 5. Measure 5 limited the uncontrolled growth of property taxes and provided some predictability to businesses in the state of future property tax burdens. Following this monumental change Oregon performed in the top half of all states for employment rates.

Chart1.pdf

During that period of high employment, it was difficult to find employees willing to work at the minimum wage. McDonalds was offering far above the minimum to new employees. Summer jobs for teens were plentiful.

In 1996 Oregon raised the state minimum wage from below the federal rate to above the rate and continued to increase the minimum wage far above the federal rate. With the passage of Measure 25 in 2002, Oregon moved up to the top three in minimum wage the automatic increases are making Oregon number one as of January 1, 2006.

Chart2.pdf

It is simplistic to say that these two changes in Oregon’s employment situation are due from these two factors alone, but they are clearly the most dominant factors. Tax cuts have been proven to stimulate economies and increases in the minimum wage have been proven to lower employment.

Even the proponents of a high minimum wage recognize the unemployment penalty involved in increasing the wage. Otherwise there would be no reason not to raise the minimum wage to $25, or $100, or why not $1000 per hour?

The supporters of increasing the minimum wage often argue that the benefit of higher purchasing power to the poor making the minimum will offset the losses in employment. The problem with that argument is that very few that make minimum wages are in poverty. Less than one fifth of minimum wage earners are in families at or below the poverty line.

The vast majority of minimum wage earners are members of households with other incomes. Over half of minimum wage earners are members of families with more that twice the poverty level. The overwhelming majority of minimum wage earners are teenagers holding their first job.

The real concern for Oregon is the impact that minimum wage has on teenagers and young adults. Studies have estimated that for every 10% the minimum wage is increased, teen unemployment increases by 2-3%.

As Oregon has increased the minimum wage unemployment for 17 to 24 year olds has also been increasing. Oregon not only has been in the top three in unemployment rate for all ages over the last three years, we are leading in teen unemployment. In 2004, more than one in every five teenagers that were seeking employment failed in their search.

Chart3.pdf

The cost of high teenage unemployment shows up in our high property crime rates and drug addiction problems. Young adults that become discouraged by unemployment often make poor decisions. Lack of low wage jobs for teens where employable skills can be learned and perfected makes future employment prospects bleak.

How much of Oregon’s youth is being lost to drugs and crime that could have been avoided by a being employed? The Governor should be asking, “What is the cost to state and local governments for the crime and drug use driven by discouraged youth?”

A minimum wage establishes a value of labor that if a person’s lack of experience, skills or work habits causes them to fall below, mandates that they are unemployable. The group most likely to be caught out by raising that bar is teenagers and young adults.

Most of these minimum wage jobs are first jobs, taken while the person is still living with the parents. They build skills for higher paying work so that they can be independent from their families in the future. Taking away these first rungs on the ladder leaves many youth with the dangerous combination of despair and idle time.

There are over 240,000 16-24 year olds in the workforce in Oregon. Every percentage point improvement in employment means that 2,400 more of Oregon’s youth gaining skills and earning income as opposed to sitting idle consuming government resources.

What could Oregon do right in the future? Other than repealing all minimum wage laws, Oregon should remove the automatic increases in minimum wage that were included as a part of Measure 25 and create a sub-minimum training wage for teenagers and new hires. This change will provide to the youth of Oregon the hope and skills that can be the start of life as a productive citizen of our great state.