Author: Ron Hart

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Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

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The writers’ union strike is in its fourth month now, though there is talk of a settlement as I write this. Writers say that the money doesn’t matter; it’s the principle, but they are really pushing hard for more money. I think it is their principal and interest that they are concerned about.

A strong aversion to real labor is what has produced most of our politicians, preachers, and actors. And this strike is really starting to get to the actors, since with no writers they have nothing to say. I know this because I watch them interviewed on Entertainment Tonight. It reminds me of Kevin Costner’s quote: “The great thing about being a celebrity is that when you bore people, they think it is their fault.”

It’s funny to watch Hollywood stars ask for exceptions to the writers’ strike when it comes to the seemingly year-round awards shows that they put on for themselves. Writers can strike “the man” at the corporations, but when it comes to the perpetual self-congratulatory spectacles that are the Oscars, the SAG awards, the Golden Globe awards, and the like, stars want an exemption.

Stars always have held a double standard for themselves. And for skaters like O.J. Simpson, Phil Spector, Robert Blake, Wesley Snipes, and Michael Jackson, stardom has allowed them to do crime for free.

But there are other examples. Nicole Richie only spent 80 minutes in jail on her DUI conviction under California’s tough “10-strikes-and-you’re-out” rule. They only got her for the 80 minutes of jail time under their new “one-minute-per-pound” rule. Don’t do the carbs unless you can do the time!

And Britney Spears has had a tough run. She got dropped by Dr. Phil, her manager, and her law firm. She was dropped more times in one day than her kids. My guess is that Britney will soon be in jail. She’s apparently setting herself up to use the “Madonna defense” by developing a fake British accent.

Britney recently started dating a married guy who was one of the paparazzi she says that she hates. (Yet another in a series of great life choices by Britney.) This guy makes Kevin Federline seem like Peyton Manning. He looks like a barker for one of those perpetually “Going Out of Business” Oriental rug places — the type of guy you would go see to buy a roofie. And just to think, Britney went to L.A. to be a Mouseketeer.

Has anyone ever become a better person by living in L.A.?

The bad thing is that the writers’ strike has not silenced Rosie O’Donnell (who I think was implicated in the Mitchell Commission steroid-use report). She agreed with Jesse Jackson when he said that Barack Obama was not black enough. Barack and his wife were very upset about these comments and said upon hearing them that it darn near ruined their night at the Neil Diamond concert.

Tom Cruise said in an interview that if you are in a car wreck, you should hope that a Scientologist drives by and helps because they “know what to do.” I can see it now: There’s a fiery crash, and the first thing victims yell is, “Is there a Scientologist around here? Please keep the paramedics away while we wait for a Scientologist!”

There is no better way to punish Hollywood celebrities than to keep them from being seen on television. While they have been off the air, I can only hope Americans began to rediscover the joy of reading a book or watching an old movie. Maybe young people even started reading a newspaper once in a while.

Ron Hart writes a weekly column about politics and life. He worked for Goldman Sachs and was appointed to the Tennessee Board of Regents by Lamar Alexander. His e-mail is RevRon10@aol.com.

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Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

“Politics should be limited in scope to war, protection of property, and the occasional precautionary beheading
of a member of the ruling class.” — P.J. O’Rourke

As evidenced by the success (financially, at least) of Ron Paul’s presidential campaign, many Americans have become libertarians, even if they don’t seem to know it yet.

Hardened views on the left and the right dominate the political scene in Washington, D.C., with efficient and competent management of government the casualty of an ideology war between the two mainstream parties. We have become a red state/blue state country, with most elections won by 51 percent to 49 percent.

Little noticed in the increasingly shrill sniping, however, is the emergence of a purplish centrism. These centrists who will shape future elections are we libertarians — fiscally conservative and socially moderate. We believe in personal responsibility and minimal government — and not just while running for office. In short, we say smoke all the crack you want, just don’t expect us to pay for your rehab. We do not meddle in places where it is not our business, e.g., Iraq, your bedroom, your religion. Libertarian thinking is gaining traction in our culture by those fed up with the far left and the far right.

The best example of this thoughtful attempt to claim the broad center between the red/blue political bickering is Paul, the independent-thinking OB-GYN doctor from Texas. I think it would be great if we had another party with influence in Washington. Currently, the White House is controlled by Republicans, at least supposedly. I’m not really sure what Bush is, but he certainly is not what I understood a Republican to be. The Senate and House are controlled by Democrats. But the truth is, both parties are controlled by lobbyists. Lobbyists say that they are necessary, since politics is about give and take. The problem is that neither lobbyists nor politicians know which is which.

And it looks like nothing will change in 2008. Both parties’ leading candidates are going around the country stirring up apathy. The Democratic and Republican conventions are coming soon. In fact, the Republicans are already auditioning a few folks to be the African-American Republicans we see on TV. And the Democrats are trying to find normal-looking, non-union, and non-unemployed people to star in their convention cameos.

In the primaries, Democrats are trying to please the loony left, while the Republicans are trying to prove that they love Jesus the most. Our current commander in chief says that Jesus is his favorite philosopher and that he reads the Bible every day. (I sort of doubt Bush on this one; it seems he would be done reading the Bible by now. But maybe he’s a slow reader.)

As a strict Constitutionalist, Paul has struck a chord with many dispirited and disenfranchised people in both parties.

Core Democrats view themselves as morally superior because they give money to anyone who says they need it, especially their inept teacher union friends. Bush and his big-government faux Republicans call themselves “compassionate conservatives.” But there is nothing compassionate about running up $9 trillion in debt to fund an inefficient and self-perpetuating federal government.

In his 20 years as a congressman, Paul never voted for a tax increase. He voted so many times against his party that he became known as “Dr. No.” He actually returns the unused portion of his annual congressional office budget to the U.S. Treasury on principle.

Paul is not your typical politician. He strikes me as the only person running for president who might actually be listening to his constituents, rather than getting a $400 haircut or running his opinions by a focus group. He is smart, conscientious, and an accomplished private-sector physician who went into politics for the right reasons. He is a man who stands firm in his beliefs and doesn’t seem to pander for votes. As such, if history is any guide, he has no chance in hell of winning.

Ron Hart is a columnist and former resident of Memphis.

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Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

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A Florida man says that his son was taken advantage of by a Florida Panhandle strip joint. Seems the father gave his son his credit card to celebrate his graduation from Georgia Tech, and the boy ran up a $53,000 tab. This appears to be a case where the strippers were the ones who got a “happy ending.”

I guess the young man, catapulted to an undergrad degree at the tender of age 24, did not learn the economics of real life in school — chief among them is to never give strippers a free shot at your credit card, no matter how drunk you are.

Much like their brethren the lawyers, strippers quickly size up a potential client for how much they can fleece from them, based on how much money they have and how stupid they appear to be.  

I have always supported honest entrepreneurs, especially when pitted against the stupid. It is good for society when money is not left too long in the hands of idiots. It is God’s way of getting money into smarter folks’ pockets. For the less religious among us, I call it economic Darwinism, and it often happens one crumpled $5 bill at a time. As the old saying goes, “A fool and his money are soon parted.” In this case, a fool and his dad’s money were soon partying.  

I do understand these men who spend silly amounts of money in strip clubs. I have had friends whose longest female relationships have lasted two table dances. Men go to these clubs to make themselves feel important because they are lacking in self-esteem or personal affirmation. They are paying for the illusion of being a big shot, and they convince themselves that these women actually think they are attractive. They usually get buyer’s remorse when the stripper’s cooing and ego-stroking ends, which invariably happens when the guy’s money runs out. Who knew?

Surprisingly, the government, which likes to wet its beak in all vices, has yet to devise a way to muscle in on the strip-joint business. They’ve done better with our other bad habits. The feds pay farmers to grow tobacco, then tax cigarettes, and then push lawsuits against cigarette manufacturers. Governments are also into gambling big-time now, sponsoring their own state lotteries (akin to running numbers) and licensing casinos. And of course, there is booze, where government takes an inordinate cut via taxes on alcohol sales. It is best to view the government as a mob boss without the protection racket — or moral consistency. 

I don’t go to strip clubs, but it’s not because I have any ethical opposition to them. The average stripper is doing the best she can with the assets she has to make money and provide for her famiy. And I respect that — especially her assets. Basically, I don’t go simply because I am too cheap.

As for the Georgia Tech grad, it sounds like he got a master’s in finance that night — for $53,000! Welcome to the real world, son! Pain is an excellent teacher, and often, in a society that makes excuses for bad behavior, it can be the only teacher. Of course, ridicule helps, which is what I do. It is my way of giving back.

Experience is how we learn life’s lessons. Experience delivers certain harsh truths to us Homo sapiens (and straight sapiens, too). This incident taught a young man the most valuable lesson in life: Don’t be an idiot.

See, everyone has a role in our society, even strippers.

Ron Hart is a columnist and former resident of Memphis.

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Opinion Viewpoint

Less Government is More

“Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.” — P.J. O’Rourke

I promised last week (The Rant, October 18th issue) to propose a solution for the competing desires of the liberal Vermont Republic and conservative League of the South to secede  from the union. So here are my ideas for what we really can do to make this  work:

First, let’s face it. We live in a divided country. Every recent national election has been close to 50-50 splits, and we are also split on how we want to run the ever-expanding federal government. As European countries such as Great Britain and France become more conservative and pro-capitalist, we in the U.S. seem poised to elect Hillary Clinton and the Democrats, who want to expand the  powers of Washington into healthcare and beyond. It will not work.

I held out hope in 1994, when the Republicans swept into a majority in Congress. They did force a few good things, such as welfare reform and  lower taxes. But over time the Republicans preferred power over principle, and they have been a bitter disappointment.

The federal government provides us with one important service, which is national defense. Lately, to let us know how important they are, the feds have been using our military in wars of choice that never  seem to turn out well. In fact, it is no longer “defense;” rather, they seem to take pleasure in deploying our troops for offense — while  confiscating 38 percent of our incomes in taxes to do so. Congress also run up trillions in deficits because they have no collective sense.

On the other hand, our state and local governments take much less of our income, and they balance their budgets, because they have to. They then provide us with services we actually use and count on: schools, roads, libraries, trash pickup, parks, airports, police, and  fire protection. They tend to do so in a manner that suits local priorities. And if you do not like what they do, you can simply move to another state.

The federal government, on the other hand, seldom does anything that pleases locals. It is more concerned about preserving and expanding its powers. Realistically, most of us can’t move to another country if we don’t like what the feds do. Movie stars sometimes threaten to do it. But most don’t follow through, which was a pity in the case of Barbra Streisand and Rosie O’Donnell.

So my solution to the unworkable-yet-appealing idea of secession is to grant more powers to the states and fewer to Washington, D.C. It is, after all, what our founding fathers intended in the first place. If you read the Federalist Papers, you will realize that they never intended for our national government to be expansive and overbearing. They wanted the states to be in charge. That way, if, for instance, you want an abortion on demand, then you move to a state that allows it. If you want to smoke weed, then you go to a state with liberal pot laws. If you think that we should pay for everything for people on welfare, you go to a state that provides flat-screen TVs and offers an assortment of French cheeses that are both delicious and  presented in a pleasing manner.

The basic reason that we fought for our independence is so we could do what we damn well please as long as it doesn’t harm others. Yet at every turn, the federal government seems to want to make us do as they think we  should, whether it comes to using windmills, driving a Prius,  or being forced to join the Hillary Healthcare Plan. (It’s interesting to me that the Democrats, who complained loudest about the  inept federal response to Katrina, are now advocating a federal takeover of  healthcare.)

The U.S. government spends our  money to make us increasingly dependent on the U.S. government’s programs.  Unfunded mandates, (which is not Larry Craig going to the bathroom without his wallet), are not good for states either. They not only waste federal money, they waste states’ money, too, with legislation that forces states to implement programs without providing funding to run them.

The Republicans did it with the expensive prescription drug-benefit giveaway. When a product that the private market should sell, such as prescription drugs, is taken over by the government, the first thing — and perhaps the only thing — that the drug companies need to buy are congressmen.

Our free-spending federal government officials think they are filled with enough hubris to believe that they should even tell other countries what to do. They call it “foreign policy.” The real answer to fixing foreign and domestic policy is allocating less money and power to the federal government and more to to state and local governments.

Ron Hart is a Southern libertarian who writes political satire. He lives  in

Florida and is an investor. His e-mail is

RevRon10@aol.com.

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Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

CREDIT: Carsten Reisinger | dreamstime.com

The League of the South met recently in Chattanooga. Like its liberal cousin to the north, The Vermont Republic, the League of the South wants to secede from the Union. While it is not necessarily a bad idea, I vaguely remember a Ken Burns PBS documentary that makes me think that this has been tried before.

The League of the South says that it is not racially motivated. (And what better way to demonstrate this than to have the Confederate Flag as your symbol on your Web site?)

The liberal secessionists in Vermont want out of the federal government for other reasons. They want gays to be able to marry and accessorize freely — and they do not want to fight wars.

The South, and in particular my home state of Tennessee, the Volunteer State, enjoys fighting and will do so at the drop of a hat. In fact, most Southern men will sign up and be on the battlefield well before they ask what the war is about — and that includes bar fights. Our warring predisposition will certainly serve the South well when we inevitably invade Vermont someday.

If you think about it, breaking up the United States into a different alignment makes sense. Corporations make markets and companies more efficient by buying them and breaking them up into more cost-effective pieces. The rock-and-roll group Grand Funk Railroad, for example, could be bought and broken up into several more valuable bands, perhaps ones that employ less cow bell in their music.

The possibilities are endless. We need to ask ourselves, for example, do we really need both a North and a South Dakota?

And Southerners can quickly get past being split off from the North as long as it does not affect the SEC football playoffs. Another plus for us is that a secession might finally eliminate the Bowl Championship Series.

The real reason there is a movement in the liberal North and the conservative South to secede is a simple one: We disagree on everything.

We in the South do not think that Congress always has our best interest at heart, like when they are in session making laws. We believe that the fundamental failure of the federal government and Congress (with its 11 percent approval rating) is its unstoppable propensity to spend our money.

Hillary Clinton, for example, recently made a campaign proposition to give $5,000 to every child born in the U.S., including illegals. (Not to be outdone, and in an effort to jumpstart his failing campaign, John Edwards said he would match the $5,000 per year and throw in a lifetime supply of Robitussin.) Offering just any “tussin” would be viewed as unacceptable by the Democrats since, if the rich get Robitussin, no generic form of “tussin” should be forced upon the poor.

When you get down to it, the South and North differ fundamentally on two issues: abortion and guns. Southerners think abortion should not be legal after the first trimester. Northern liberals think abortion should be legal up to age 12.

On guns, we Southerners want our assault weapons in the glove compartment of our trucks, ready to blow away anyone who poses a threat to us, real or imagined.

Northerners believe that only the police, gangs, and the Mafia should have guns.

If we do split, the South could finally realize its dream of no separation of church and state and govern by religious denominations instead of political parties. The Baptists would be like the Shiites and the Methodists like the Sunnis. That has worked well in Iraq.

As we in the South know, as long as our leaders go to church and sing hymns on Sundays (and especially if they tell us about it enough), they prove both their moral superiority and leadership credentials. We will need no laws, just the Ten Commandments. And we certainly do not need zoning laws, as proven by driving through Panama City, Florida, or any Atlanta suburb.

The North will be aligned and beholden to every half-assed organized special-interest group that can afford a microphone. The overriding theme will be that if enough special interests — be they teachers’ unions, cab drivers or plaintiffs’ lawyers — get together in any seemingly victimized fashion, they can get something free from the government. Liberal Democrats love this country, much like O. J. Simpson loved his ex-wife and his sports memorabilia.

The North can keep the United Nations, and we in the South can learn about the rest of the world the way we always have — by visiting Epcot Center in Orlando.

Ron Hart is a libertarian columnist who lives in Atlanta.

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Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

CREDIT: (AP Photo/Troy Maben)

“Idaho senator Larry Craig quit his Senate seat,

saying that he wanted to spend more time not being gay.”

— David Letterman

The arrest of Senator Larry Craig (Perv-ID) in an airport bathroom sex sting and his vacillations about resigning make writing a column just plain fun. Craig said he kept the incident quiet so he could consider his options. It was yet another good decision by bathroom-stall enthusiast “not gay” Craig, deftly avoiding a media circus.

The mix of politics and religion has always been a hypocrite-magnet and brings to mind my award-eligible column about the Rev. Ted Haggard (who opposed gays even as he was hiring a male hooker and buying drugs with church money in a hotel room) entitled, “Ministers Should Do More Than Lay People.”

But this story floors me. At first, I thought Craig was like many of our grandfathers and dads — an out-of-touch old man who did not know the gay signals. After all, he was caught in this sex sting in a state that elected a pro wrestler as governor. Perhaps they took a hard line on bathroom-stall toe-tapping for fear it would lead to more musicals. Then, when his fellow GOP leaders did not defend him, and he did not even get a “you’re doing a heckuva job” out of President Bush, I figured that Craig probably had a history of such conduct.

The Democrats were handed yet another election-year gift and thought they had seen the last of yet another GOP right-winger. There they were, standing around Craig’s twitching body, poking him with a stick (which I bet he likes), when suddenly the Craig camp (a camp you do not want to send your son to) said he might not resign. Dems, who were afraid they might actually have to come up with a reasonable alternative agenda to defeat the GOP in the fall, fretted.

Gays were torn over whether to be happy that Craig was forced to reveal his actions or offended that this creep is gay.

Craig’s June guilty plea in Minneapolis and rumors that he had done this before in a train station in Washington, D.C., created a dilemma for Democrats. On one hand, they had a great chance to embarrass a Republican, but they had to do so by condemning a gay guy who supports public transportation. When events defy logic, you can rest assured politicians are involved.

Craig said that he is not a guy who will go down easy. I bet the arresting cop disagrees. Standing beside his wife and adopted kids, he said that he wanted a do-over on his guilty plea. His defense is going to be — and I am not kidding — that his plea was not intelligently arrived at. Now if you ever wonder why our legal system is messed up, look no further than Senator Craig — a “lawmaker,” remember.

I would argue that, unlike openly gay males, closeted ones like Craig hurt their families by perpetuating a fraud about their sexual orientation. For you homophobes out there, you should be more supportive of those who come out. Richard Simmons is not going to sneak up on you in a bathroom in his candy-striped short-shorts. He’s out. It’s the guys with secret sex lives who are the problem.

I have long said that the GOP is misguided when it espouses minimal government and individual freedom yet seems obsessed with pushing laws to make it difficult for consenting adults to do what they want as long as no harm is done to anyone. We haven’t caught bin Laden. We’re running massive federal deficits. We have bigger problems than persecuting people for what they do in private with a consenting partner.

It is hard for Craig to think about the surge when he is constantly fighting an urge.

Incidentally, what sort of cop signs up for sitting in a toilet and tapping his toe in hopes that a gay dude will hit on him? The cop from the Village People?

It is comforting to know that our phones, e-mails, and bathroom stalls are now monitored by our government. It seems the only two things they are not watching are their spending and our borders!

Ron Hart is a Southern libertarian who writes about politics and life. His e-mail address is RevRon10@aol.com.

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Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

At some point, our village elders decided that a teenager becomes an adult at age 18. I am convinced this was determined by folks who had never met any 18-year-olds.

My son left for college this week, and I have to learn to temper my expectations for his tenure at his chosen institution of higher learning so we do not kill each other. He started early with summer school, a strategy adopted by colleges to steer kids away from actually working at summer jobs. Too much reality detracts from the soft, theoretical la-la land of college.

There is a societal pressure for parents to ride kids hard to make good grades, and I wonder if we are not just driving ourselves and our kids nuts by doing so. Kids have to have a light on and want to learn something. It is at this point that they get interested and absorb information that they seek out themselves. Certainly, it seldom has anything to do with reading Chaucer.

We in the U.S. overeducate many kids well beyond their interest in school and, in many cases, their abilities. The reality is that college is often a place to store a kid in the hope that he or she grows up by the time they are done. They learn many life lessons there, such as how much liquor they can hold and how to pay speeding and parking tickets.

My son took a less difficult route than my daughter, who is at Vanderbilt. He wanted to go to a big, state SEC school, and Georgia, our state, which is 49th in education, was a bit ambitious. So he went to Mississippi — securely ranked at number 50.

He is leaving nothing to chance by letting hard classes get in the way of his college experience. At his age, some kids drink from the fountain of knowledge, but he will only gargle and spit it out — probably on a fraternity pledge.

On the bright side, he does have some college ambitions, aside from dressing well and dating lots of co-eds. He knows that Ole Miss is ranked the second-best party school in the country, and he feels strongly that he and a few kids from his high school who are going there with him can soon get it to number one.

In fairness, most of a student’s education in college occurs outside of the classroom. And with all the tenured liberal professors being harbored on today’s campuses, that is sometimes a good thing. And Ole Miss is not as bad as most colleges; I understand it has one professor who once voted for a Republican.

In the end, we have to let our children go and discover life on their own terms. By the time they’re 18, the die is cast, anyway.

My son’s view seems to be that the sooner he gets behind in school, the more time he has to catch up. It will be fun to see if this pans out for him in college.

We seem to agree on very little these days, even on issues like which way his baseball cap should point. He says that if an 18-year-old can fight in Iraq, he ought to be able to drink in the U.S.A. I told him that we agree, and if he wants to sign up for the Marines and serve in Iraq, I certainly would allow him to drink.

A friend reminded me of a scene from Sanford and Son, one of my favorite shows from my youth. Fred Sanford said to his son Lamont: “Didn’t you learn anything from being my son? What do you think I’m doing this all for?”

Lamont answers: “Yourself.”

Fred: “Yeah, you learned something.”

Parents who push their kids too hard are usually doing it for themselves and not for their kids. All we can hope is to keep our kids safe until that light comes on someday and they find something that they really want to pursue. It is rarely what we had in mind.

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Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

“Acting is a child’s prerogative. Children are born to act. Usually, people grow up and out of it. Actors always seem to me to be people who never quite did grow out of it.”

— Joanne Woodward

It concerns me that many of our biggest stars are regularly incarcerated. They seem to drop like flies once they achieve a certain amount of notoriety, so much so that we have to have shows like American Idol and America’s Next Star to desperately replenish the supply of luminaries that we lose to our criminal justice system weekly.

The trouble for our stars begins with their dance with the paparazzi, whom they readily indulge early in their careers. Then, at some point, they begin to find it irritating to be constantly chased around while clubbing and sunbathing topless and are caught on tape hitting or cursing a photographer. This narcissistic flirtation with the cameras ends up being the reason for — and is often the demise of — these flash-in-the-pan dopes whom our hyper-celebrity-focused media both create and demolish. The Hollywood celebrity industry makes big bucks creating gods of these mere mortals in the name of stardom and then chastises them for being just that — mortal and very fallible.

We all know about the living Jerry Springer Show that is now Britney Spears’ life, but Lindsay Lohan, Nicole Richie, Kate Moss, Amy Winehouse, David Hasselhoff, Robert Downey Jr., Alec Baldwin, Al Gore’s son, and, of course, the über-celebutant Paris Hilton all have had their troubles with the law. Not to mention Robert Blake and Phil Spector, who’ve taken “troubles with the law” to Oscar levels. They seem to be L.A.’s equivalent of Otis on Mayberry RFD.

Of all the folks I mentioned, the one I have the hardest time understanding is Paris Hilton. She has done nothing to merit fame. Nothing. She was given $200 million in a trust fund as a result of the hard work and ingenuity of her grandfather, Baron Hilton. Her career

Lindsay Lohan AP Photo/Santa Monica Police

consists of being rich and getting photographed. No jobs to speak of, no stress, no car note, no mortgage, and somehow she finds herself in prison. How do you screw up being rich? Is it that hard to hire a driver? It is not like you are attempting to overthrow a government or to perform brain surgery. All Paris had to do is sit there and be rich.

Most of these drug-driven dopes in L.A. end up at a rehab center called Promises. If that place had a revolving door, it could be hooked up to a turbine and provide the energy needs of California for a month. Promises must be one of the few rehab centers with an open bar, considering the constant repeat arrests of stars who spend time there. Perhaps they should change their name from Promises to Empty Gestures or maybe Enabling Excuses.

Of course, it’s possible that these “stars” may do this whole getting arrested thing to distract the public from their movies. Have you seen a good performance from any of these people — ever?

In their defense, it is really hard to get off booze and drugs, especially when you really don’t want to. And at least their antics provide an opportunity for the rest of us to live the star-life vicariously, without having to go to rehab or prison.

Ultimately, we shouldn’t waste time feeling sorry for these folks. Like the rest of us, they live the life they’ve chosen — for better or worse, mostly worse.

Ron Hart is a columnist and investor. He worked for Goldman Sachs and was appointed to the Tennessee Board of Regents by Lamar Alexander. His e-mail: RevRon10@aol.com.

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Opinion Viewpoint

Fear, and Fear Itself

“It is time to fear when tyrants seem to kiss.” — William Shakespeare

If what William Shakespeare said is true, and it is, then today we have little to fear. All the tyrants of the world are certainly not kissing. Everyone seems to hate everyone else, and the Islamic extremists seem to hate every other ethnic sect as much as they hate us. The only foreign leader Bush feels like he can trust is Arnold Schwarzenegger.

That is why when Michael Chertoff, who controls the Homeland Security budget, says that there is a bogeyman around the corner, I take it with a grain of salt. Without putting fear in us, he has no job and certainly no budget. Last week, he said he “had a hunch that there might be an attack this summer.” What sort of comment is that? It is about as vague and silly as terrorist alert levels orange, red, or mauve.

Even the British, with all the Muslims living in England, some of whom recently tried to set off a bomb at Glasgow airport, raised their threat level. Ever the English, I think they went from level “miffed” to “perturbed” after the incident.

The French went from threat level “run” to “hide.” The only higher levels the French have are “cower,” “tremble,” “surrender,” and “collaborate.”

The way the terrorists really hurt us was by making us create the department of Homeland Security in the first place. It has become no more than a pork-barrel political gorging fest. The TSA (Thousands Standing Around) just took the private-sector security guards in ill-fitting blazers and government-issue polyester pants and turned them into a unionized, overweight, overpaid, rigid group that frisks grandmothers on their way to Florida. We now have to bring our carry-on bags to some woman who is about 5′-1″ and pushing the deuce on weight. Her pants are so tight, the zipper looks like gold teeth. Is this really what you want? Your first line of defense against the terrorist is a woman smacking gum and telling you to stay eight feet away from her while rolling her eyes and flirting with her male counterpart?

It has been almost six years since 9/11, and they still do not have a card that safe Americans can get that would move us through the airport line more quickly. Just how long does that take? You ask a few questions, you check the person out, and you issue the card. Equifax and Blockbuster can do it in an hour.

And how about some shoehorns at the end of the security line? Millions fly each year and take off their shoes. How long would it take a business to figure out that providing shoehorns would be a good idea?

You cannot count on the U.S. government, people. The sooner you realize that, the sooner you will stop being disappointed. We got Paris Hilton behind bars, but Osama bin Laden, an old millionaire hooked to a dialysis machine, is still running around. Remember, he was sweet on Anna Nicole Smith. Now that she has died, our only real chance of catching bin Laden is gone.

We have to believe in ourselves, not the federal government. Olympic bomber Eric Rudolph was caught by a small-town, off-duty cop. The “terrorist ring” in New Jersey was foiled by a Circuit City employee. (The guy was good: He not only caught them but sold them a bunch of junk that they didn’t need with extended warranties.) There are your true heroes, not the self-important bureaucrats in government. I really believe that politicians are agents of the devil, yet their duties are largely ceremonial.

What we need to do is secure our borders with our soldiers. We have nobly tried to help Iraq. However, as we have learned time and time again, you cannot help those who are unwilling to help themselves. If we are beaten by the terrorists, it will be in the same way the Soviet Union lost to us: We will be pushed into fiscal bankruptcy by politicians pouring money down a black hole in wars that need not be fought.

Ron Hart is a columnist and investor in Atlanta. His e-mail: RevRon10@aol.com.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Here’s the Deal

A couple weeks ago, I attended the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival, courtesy of the Manchester, Tennessee, paper that carries my column.

Bonnaroo is an amazing series of concerts on a 700-acre farm between Nashville and Chattanooga. It is like an annual Woodstock, where hippies and hipsters go camping and watch top bands play for four days. I did not camp, however, because camping outdoors involves the outdoors, and in my opinion, the outdoors is best left outdoors.

I was initially told that Bonnaroo is a made-up word that means nothing, just like “lollapalooza” or “congressional ethics.” Later, I found out that “bonnaroo” is Cajun slang for fun. And it was.

There were lots of kids with nose rings and tattoos. Many were wearing bathing suits that they should have reconsidered. In fact, although I am steadfastly against more government, I really think some of these people should have to apply for a permit to wear a two-piece. Bill Clinton could chair the committee to review applicants; he’d like that.

One person died, and I am sure countless kids had to be untangled from making out with another joyous soul wearing a nose ring. There was more sex going on than Paris Hilton’s last night before jail. (I bet some attendees are checking their crotches this week, just hoping that itch is only a bug bite.)

As you might imagine, the Birkenstock crowd was there with booths supporting all their social causes. As best I can figure, they like to “raise awareness” in hopes that someone else will actually do something about the problems. It is apparently more noble to be an activist for grand-scale issues such as the environment than cleaning up your own campsite.

Anytime young music fans get together, there will be drugs. And the drug use at Bonnaroo was so open that if a kid was arrested with pot in his system, he could probably have asked for it back.

Drug vendors on foot offered a wide array of pot, coke, and acid for reasonable prices. Capitalism at its purest. Drugs were sold at a more competitive price than the prescription drug benefit Congress gave us, because at Bonnaroo, drug dealers were forced to compete on prices.

The way dealers at Bonnaroo operated is that when they walked by, they said the name of their product. You heard the word “pot” said by a passerby. If you wanted to buy said product, then — unlike our government’s drug purchases — you engaged the vendor in price negotiations. (And as with most of my purchases, the conversation began with: You ain’t no cop are you?)

Being one of the oldest people at Bonnaroo, I didn’t get many offers to buy drugs, although I was a little nonplussed when one dealer walked by and whispered, “Geritol.”

They also registered voters at Bonnaroo. Organizers assume the young people they register are going to vote for Democrats since most of the participants probably get their political views from the drummer for Third Eye Blind. This is the same drummer who rails against 10-cents-a-gallon profit for the oil companies yet has no problem selling his band’s T-shirts for $35 a piece.

One vendor said that he was for Hillary Clinton because Hillary would fight global warming. I told him that he might be onto something, since there is nothing about Hillary that is the least bit warm.

Another activist told me he was going to vote for Dennis (“Munchkin”) Kucinich because of his strong environmental stance. He kept citing the fact that some scientists say the oceans will rise four feet because of global warming, which explains why Kucinich is fighting it so hard: He would probably drown.

In the end, I must admit I really enjoyed Bonnaroo. I would advise other fortysomethings to try it. On one hand, the festival made you feel old, yet the vibrant and infectious carefree atmosphere made you feel young and rejuvenated.

And it reminded me that while getting old is inevitable, acting old is optional.

Ron Hart is a columnist and investor in Atlanta. He worked for Goldman Sachs and was appointed to the Tennessee Board of Regents by Lamar Alexander. His e-mail: RevRon10@aol.com.