Patrick J. Buchanan, three times contender for U.S. president ('92, '96, and 2000) and syndicated columnist seen in the Quad-City Times, in his December 2007 book Day of Reckoning identifies the great illusion that is fatally eroding the USA's economic strength and world economic leadership: free trade.
That the ascension to national economic power - from Britain in the past to Communist China today - has been facilitated by protectionist trade policies and actions. The essential reality to be exercised in the restoration of U.S. national economic power, superseding the one-world transnational economic unit of Nobel Prize economist Milton Friedman and revealing the free-trade mantra as the seductive tune of the Pied Piper abductor of the USA's national economic strength and economic leadership in the world. And of America's status as a sovereign nation.
America's political leaders will either learn and implement the lesson Pat Buchanan teaches and thereby reverse America's rush to economic ruin - or they will continue our nation's decline to that otherwise inevitable end.
What a revolutionary thought from Mr. Buchanan: that American tariffs can actually make the necessary positive difference for America and Americans!
Patrick J. Buchanan has illuminated the long-needed New American Economic Revolution, where the USA and Americans win. Showing he would be outstandingly valuable serving his fourth time as a senior adviser to a U.S. president, whichever party wins the election.
Joel D. Weber
Davenport
Loophole in Iowa Constitution Lets Residents Smoke Pot
I was doing a little research for one of my favorite sports - fighting in court - when I found an interesting little tidbit in the Constitution of the State of Iowa.
"Constitution of The State of Iowa - Article II Section 2. Electors shall, in all cases except treason, felony, or breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest on the days of election, during their attendance at such election, going to and returning therefrom."
Hmmmmm ... to me this means that a resident could walk down the street smoking a joint on the way to vote, light a cigarette in the public building where the polling takes place, and jaywalk on the way home from the polls and be privileged from arrest.
Other misdemeanors such as not having motor-vehicle insurance or wearing a seatbelt are all up in the air as long as you are a qualified elector who has been a resident of Iowa for six months and is over the age of 18 (or in presidential caucuses will be 18 before the election takes place) and is headed to or from the polls.
Here are some other laws you may want to break while you are privileged from arrest:
• In Ottumwa, Iowa, "It is unlawful for any male person, within the corporate limits of the [city], to wink at any female person with whom he is unacquainted."
• No person may pick a flower from a city park in Mount Vernon.
• No person shall tell fortunes or practice phrenology, palmistry, or clairvoyance in the city of Cedar Rapids.
• Horses are forbidden to eat fire hydrants in Marshalltown, Iowa.
• The "Ice Cream Man" and his truck are banned in Indianola.
• Law forbids any establishment from charging admission to see a one-armed piano player.
• A man with a mustache may never kiss a woman in public.
• Kisses may last for as much as, but no more than, five minutes.
• It is illegal to hunt from an aircraft.
So this election day, I propose shooting a deer from your plane then getting into an ice-cream truck and and playing "Pop Goes the Weasel" loudly, stopping to pick flowers and read palms, kissing women with your mustached lips for as long as want, and winking at any hottie you like all while stoned on marijuana as you travel to and from your precinct to vote. It's a blow for freedom!
Don't forget to tip the piano player after he plays "Happy Days Are Here Again."
Chris Rice
Rock Island
Corrections
In last week's article "Activists at Some Level," the Port Byron-based company ePower Synergies, Incorporated, was incorrectly identified as being Muscatine-based. Author Mike Schulz apologizes for the error, and for mistaking Iowa for Illinois, as so many of his friends on the East Coast do.
