Commentary

A Tradition of Sacrifice, from Yorktown to Ramadi by Leif Babin

This entire article from the WSJ Online is a MUST READ this Memorial Day!

It was not the Declaration of Independence that gave us freedom but the Continental Army. America was born from conflict, delivered by soldiers willing to pay with their blood the tremendous cost of freedom.

The dead did not wish to be martyred. They no doubt longed to return to their homes and families. But they believed in the “glorious cause,” something far greater than themselves. Despite knowing the dangers before them, they followed Gen. Washington into the fray even when victory seemed hopeless and the cause all but lost.

Read the entire article at WSJ online.

Privacy Protects Our Freedom of Speech

By KYLE SCOTT
Lone Star College Board of Trustees

When privacy is threatened so too is our freedom of speech. The government is capable of grotesque abuses of power as recent events at the IRS attest. The government can be turned into a bully pulpit. If gone unchecked, bureaucratic agents can be agents of abuse in which those groups that challenge the current regime can be singled out by the government. As James Madison wrote, “I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.” If you don’t believe Madison, just ask the Associated Press whose phone records were placed under subpoena by the Justice Department in hopes of finding out who the anonymous sources were to stories that shed an unfavorable light on the White House.

Fortunately public attention has been directed to the abuses of power by the Justice Department and the IRS. But there are instances in our own state government where “the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments” is occurring in this current legislative session.

Senate Bill 346 which passed the Senate and House is being sent to the Governor. SB 346 would require non-profit groups that contribute more than $25,000 to political campaigns in a six month period to disclose the names of donors who contributed $1,000 or more to that organization in the same period. Labor unions would be exempt from this disclosure requirement. The exemption of labor unions explains why this bill has received almost unanimous support from Democrats in the state legislature. Support from Democrats was paramount for this bill to pass as most Republicans who receive support from grassroots organizations such as Texans for Fiscal Responsibility and the Tea Parties oppose this bill. State Representative Charlie Geren (R) and State Senator Ken Seliger (R) have been challenged by the same grassroots organizations this bill targets.

By disclosing the names of contributors, SB 346 would allow donors to these organizations to be targeted by politicians they oppose. In NAACP v. Alabama (1958) the Supreme Court ruled that the right of political groups to keep their membership private was essential for protecting First Amendment rights. If privacy is not protected then those who speak out can come under attack from those whom they speak out against.

The threat to privacy as relevant to First Amendment rights is at the heart of the current AP scandal. The Justice Department wanted to know who was leaking stories to the Associated Press, stories that were damaging to the current administration. This information, if given to the Justice Department, would expose the identity of anonymous sources which could potentially put them at risk. If privacy is not protected there will be fewer people willing to come forward and speak out against the government.

Privacy permits people to speak out against impropriety and to challenge the status quo without risk of political backlash. We need to encourage Governor Perry to veto SB 346 just was we need to encourage our elected officials in Washington to oppose any measures that would quell political dissent. If there is any doubt about the government’s willingness to squash opposition once they know who the opposition is we need not look any further than the IRS office in Cincinnati.

Kyle Scott, PhD, is the author of Federalist Papers: A Reader’s Guide, teaches at the University of Houston, and has just been elected to the Lone Star College Board of Trustees. The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the University of Houston or the Lone Star College District, its board or any other officer or employee of those institutions.

Originally posted in the Kingwood Observer, Thursday, May 16, 2013
Kyle Scott’s Blog

Development of New York’s Shale Resources Would Stimulate Economic Growth

According to the Manhattan Institute’s report, the fracking moratorium is blocking New York counties from seeing a potential $8 billion in added income over four years. The report zeroes in on 28 New York counties that sit above the Marcellus and compares jobs and income growth in 50 Pennsylvania counties that produce gas.

ShaleEconomicBenefitNewYork 08May2013

Texas Tea Blog by Rich Stoisits

Rich Stoisits is the Kingwood TEA Party’s “Energy Guy!” I hope you read his posts and learn as much as I do!

God and Guns by Kyle Scott

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Today is the National Day of Prayer and tomorrow is the opening day of the NRA Convention in Houston. Let me try to connect God and guns via Alexis de Tocqueville. Tocqueville wrote, “Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.” This observation exposes the connection between a nation’s character and its ability to enjoy liberty. It also establishes the point that laws cannot establish the right character for enjoying liberty.

Laws become necessary when men are no longer able to govern themselves. Men cannot govern themselves when they lack the character—which is the knowledge of right from wrong that shapes our behavior—necessary to drive them to right action. But when we establish a law we lose a little bit of liberty because the government now tells us we cannot do something. When this occurs we enact laws to maintain peace and order so that whatever liberty was not given up under the new law can be maintained under the new law. The tradeoff between law and liberty is sometimes necessary—thus making it a reciprocal relationship—sometimes it is excessive. If we had the right character we would not need to make a trade in the first place.

This brings us to Tocqueville’s point: act in the right manner on your own and you will have all the liberty you could ever want, act badly—and bad acts come from bad character—and you will lose your liberty to a government that takes the authority of self-government from people who are not capable of having it. The laws can give us direction but they cannot make the bad man good, they cannot give us the right character. Character—the knowledge of right from wrong that shapes our behavior—must come through faith. We cannot look to the government to make us better people for the government is inevitably a flawed construction for it comes from a flawed people who we know are flawed because they need government. Government is the product from which it is also to be the solution. This makes it incomplete at best and contradictory at worst.

What Tocqueville means by this quote is that we should look inward and upward for solutions rather than to government. Tocqueville advocated small knit communities in which the family, church, and schools played a central role in character development and none of the three—church, family, schools—were entirely independent of the other. They worked in concert for the betterment of the individual’s character so that government constraint could be minimized. The individual—with the proper character—would be left to govern himself.

This brings us to guns; a tool to protect self-government. Guns, in the hands of those with the right character, maintain peace, balance, eliminate the need for government oversight, and create a strong bond among families and communities. But guns in the wrong hands can do some of the most heinous things. We cannot fix what is broken in the people who would use guns badly, we cannot make laws that would make them better people. Placing a ban on weapons will not make the bad people good or the good people safe. If we want to minimize violence we must look for solutions that tap into the core of the problem. We must reunite around family and community. We must return to faith. The problems we face are out of our hands whether we want to admit it or not. We should not stop trying to make the world around us better, but we should recognize our limitations. We do know that laws restricting guns would keep good people from protecting themselves from bad people. It would again turn our right of self-determination over to the government.

We need more faith not more laws.

Dr. Kyle Scott, The Conservative Professor teaches Constitution studies at U of H here in Houston. He is currently (May, 2013) also a candidate for Lone Star College Trustee, Pos. 2.

2013 KWTP Lone Star College & HISD Trustees Recommendations

IMPORTANT – CONSERVATIVE VOTERS:
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Meet the 2013 KWTP LSC Trustee Recommendations

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Vote for Kyle Scott for LSC Trustee.	MEET the CONSERVATIVE PROFESSOR, KYLE SCOTT. Introducing Houston’s Conservative Professor from 1070 AM Radio: Dr. Kyle Scott. Dr. Scott’s Bio Links to Articles Kyle Scott Wrote or is quoted in: College System Funding Options Available by Kyle Scott Community Colleges Need to Return to Mission by Kyle Scott Go Local by Kyle Scott Give Me Liberty or Give Me Debt by Kyle Scott Some Say Lone Star College Bond Not Needed, Chronicle article by Bryan Kirk, 4/25/13 Letters from LSC trustee candidate Kyle Scott published in the Tribune
Vote for Ron Trowbridge for LSC Trustee	MEET RON TROWBRIDGE* Former chief of staff to U. S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger * Directed the Fulbright Program at the United States Information Agency * Vice President at Hillsdale College * Ph. D. in English from U of Michigan * Tenured full professor * Taught at Lone Star College, 2006-2012 * Presently Senior Fellow at Center for College Affordability and Productivity Drafts Bill Concept for Legislature Ron recently initiated and designed a proposal for a legislative bill that would help low-income community college students get a four-year college degree. The concept would eliminate the nightmare of wasted time and huge expense that community-college students have had to suffer in transferring course-credits to a four-year school and would enable these students to get a four-year college degree faster and cheaper.

Some Say Lone Star College Bond Not Needed

The Lone Star College System’s $497.7 million bond referendum set for May 11 is meeting with some resistance from residents who believe the bond is not necessary.  The bond features a number of new projects to be constructed throughout the LSCS without raising taxes.

Kyle Scott, who is seeking a seat on the LSCS board of trustees, said he has several reasons for his opposition, part of which involves a January report issued by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, which projected lower enrollment numbers between 2013 and 2018 than the college system forecasts.

Robin’s Commentary: The report predicted a flat line in enrollments, the Chancellor said it in last year’s Report, AND Enrollment dropped last semester. KWTP agrees with Kyle Scott and Ron Trowbridge that the bond is NOT needed at this time. So at the very least is would be wise to wait and see if the record enrollment was population driven, or driven by the downturn in the economy that had many people enrolling to expand their marketability when unemployment went so high.

Read the whole article from April 25, 2013 by Bryan Kirk of the Chronicle online.

Introducing Houston’s Conservative Professor: Dr. Kyle Scott

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Introducing Houston’s Conservative Professor from 1070 AM Radio: Dr. Kyle Scott

Dr. Kyle Scott, is a rare conservative Professor, teaching American politics and constitutional law at the University of Houston. He is a strong voice for conservatism in our area and is a regular on the Sam Malone Show on 1070 AM as the Conservative Professor. Dr. Scott has his own blog here. He is also willing and able to help us have a conservative voice on the Lone Star College School System Board of Trustees, running for Position 2 in 2013.

I hope you enjoy his commentary and expertise as much as I do!

Robin

From GOP Votes:

Kyle Scott, PhD, teaches American politics and constitutional law at the University of Houston and is a candidate for the Lone Star College Board of Trustees, Position #2. He has decided that in addition to writing about politics he should join in on the policymaking. In running for the LSCS Board of Trustees he hopes to restore fiscal sanity by opposing the addition of more debt and by keeping taxes and student fees down. His first and last obligation is to the taxpayers and the students.

In addition to his four books and dozens of academic articles, Kyle provides commentary on current events for Liberty, Forbes, Reuters, Christian Science Monitor, Foxnews.com, Washington Times, and dozens of local outlets including the Orlando Sentinel, Charlotte Observer, Philadelphia Inquirer, Houston Chronicle and Baltimore Sun. He is eager to write for TexasGOPVote.com and humbled by the opportunity to speak directly to Texas Conservatives.

If you have any questions or what to learn more about Dr. Kyle Scott, please contact him:

Email: vote4kylescott@gmail.com
Blog: http://kyleascott.wordpress.com
Twitter: @ScottKyleA

“The conservative message is not easy to accept or digest because it forces the individual to take personal responsibility for his or her successes and failures, to not turn outward for assistance, but to turn inward for answers. It is much easier to point at someone else and say it’s their fault; it is much more difficult to look in the mirror and take responsibility.”

College System Funding Options Available

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Letter to the Editor, The Observer – Atascocita
Published Thursday, Mar. 28, 2013

Dear Editor:

When there is a revenue shortage government entities seek to sell bonds or raise taxes. Either way the government is asking taxpayers to foot the bill in the long term and the short term. We should be particularly concerned with bond sells because of the debt load they produce. Adding debt simply because it is the way things are traditionally done is not a good enough reason to keep doing it. Cyprus should be a warning bell to every government entity. The strategy of adding debt to fund unnecessary projects is being adopted by the Lone Star College System (LSCS) as it has approved a bond issue to be put before the voters on the May 11th ballot. LSCS is looking for voters to approve an additional $500 million in debt after they just approved a bond issue six years ago. Rather than tacking on more debt and burdening the taxpayer LSCS needs to get creative. There are four strategies LSCS could adopt if it wants to raise more revenue in a responsible and debt free manner.

First, LSCS should tap the private sector and philanthropic entities. LSCS should sell the naming rights to its buildings to corporations the same way large research institutes and sports franchises do. Corporations get their name on a building which builds name recognition and community good will and the college gets revenue. Smaller items can be included by holding public auctions or fundraisers where local businesses and private individuals can bid on items as small as a desk or a suite of offices.

LSCS can also expand its hybrid and online course offerings. It seems arcane to think that hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent on brick and mortar when the entire educational enterprise is moving online. Hybrid classes, which are part traditional courses and part online, would serve as a great compromise. If a class is scheduled to meet Monday/Wednesday from 12-2 then it could meet Monday online and Wednesday in a traditional setting. Another class scheduled for the same time and days could then be scheduled to meet in the same classroom on Mondays and online on Wednesdays. This would allow two classes scheduled at the same time to use one room therefore eliminating the need for additional classrooms or parking spaces.

Additionally, since most of the day classrooms and parking spaces sit empty, the college system should find a way to use all the space all the time rather than building additional facilities to accommodate the few peak hours. Some time slots, such as late Friday afternoon, are unpopular among students and therefore attract fewer students. There is no reason to build more classrooms if the college already has some sitting empty. To attract students to these time slots the college system should offer reduced fees for students willing to sign up for unpopular time slots. Most LSCS students could use a break on fees anyway so this recommendation is a winner for everyone as it helps students, taxpayers, and the college system.

The fourth recommendation builds on the idea that the facilities should not sit idle. If you go on any of the Lone Star campuses in the evening or on the weekends there is almost no one there. This is a waste of space and money. But, this space could be rented out to corporations and non-profit entities who need a place to hold meetings, conferences, or training sessions. The fees would create an additional revenue stream in addition to building the college’s profile among the local business community in a way that would benefit students.

Each of these recommendations would require administrators and board members to think differently. But, the way things have always been done is not the only way to get things done. If our education system is to keep pace with a dynamic business culture then it needs to become fresh and dynamic as well.

Kyle Scott, Ph.D.
Department of Political Science and Honors College
University of Houston