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by Bob Crawford
Contrary to the claims central to much of the argument of the pro-gun lobby, the right to bear arms, as provided by the Constitution’s Second Amendment, is not absolute in the sense of disallowing any regulating or limiting conditions.
With any right, limitations apply at the point where one right meets competing demands of another right.
Crawford is an artist and writer living in Roanoke County.
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By Seth Heald
On May 3, I took a day off from work to travel to Richmond for Dominion Resources Inc.’s annual shareholders meeting. Dominion Resources owns Dominion Virginia Power, the commonwealth’s largest utility.
I went to speak in favor of a shareholder resolution asking Dominion’s management and board to set a timetable for ending the company’s purchases of coal obtained through mountaintop-removal mining.
The board recommended voting against the resolution, and so it went down to defeat, as most shareholder resolutions do. But I thought I’d share my comments at the meeting with Roanoke Times readers, who might be particularly interested in the Dominion board’s cavalier response to the resolution. The board didn’t even try to defend mountaintop removal. Instead it just passed the buck and absolved itself and the company from any responsibility for the devastation its coal purchases are causing.
Heald, of Rixeyville in Culpeper County, is a lawyer and a Dominion Resources shareholder.
By Kathleen Parker
Breaking news: Conservative organizations suddenly have found common cause with one of their favorite objects of contempt — the benighted Mainstream Media.
Or as the tea party queen and former Alaska governor likes to put it, the “lamestream media.”
In a twist of irony, the two groups have coalesced around a common enemy: the U.S. government.
Parker is a columnist with the Washington Post Writers Group.
By David Banks
To hear environmental leaders tell it, the way forward on energy policy is clear. The United States should be more aggressive in moving to phase out fossil fuels and nuclear power in electricity generation and use renewable sources instead.
To do this, environmentalists say, we must challenge old ways of thinking rooted in the notion that coal, natural gas and nuclear power are needed to meet increased demand for electricity, and we must embrace new clean energy sources like solar and wind power.
Banks, of Timberville, is a retired communicator (and now a gentleman farmer) with more than 20 years experience in the coal, natural gas and oil industries.
by David Radcliff
The clothing factory collapse in Bangladesh killing hundreds — another in a string of such tragedies in the past year — is a reminder of the high cost of our cheap clothes.
Not only are the mostly female workers in these factories paid pitiful wages (in Bangladesh, as low as 14 cents an hour for 14-hour days), but they must risk their lives to labor in unsafe conditions. Meanwhile, the CEOs of the clothing corporations earn $10,000 to $17,000 an hour, shareholders rake in profits, and we brag over our latest “find” of an inexpensive garment purchased at the mall.
Radcliff is director of the New Community Project. Originally from Blue Ridge, he now lives in Peoria, Ariz.
By Christopher Strom
Looking on the recent terrorist attack that occurred in Boston, it’s clear that the lessons from the past continue to persist unabated in our intelligence organizations.
After the terrorist attack of 9/11, then President George W. Bush sought enactment of the U.S. Patriot Act (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001), which was signed into law October 2001.
This vital and ever-evolving law allowed federal law enforcement to monitor terrorist activity both inside the United States and around the world in order to keep us all safe.
Strom, of Roanoke, is a former U.S. Marine, retired sergeant from the NYPD Intelligence Divisions Counter Terrorism Unit. He served in Iraq as the lead tactical debriefing officer and continues to instruct on domestic/counter terrorism strategies to U.S. special forces, law enforcement and colleges.
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By Kathleen Kennedy
A couple weeks ago, members of the Southwest Virginia Songwriters Association drew attention online for literally singing the praises of Rep. Bob Goodlatte for his work to prevent online piracy. Shortly afterward, as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, the congressman called for a comprehensive review of the current copyright system in order to adapt it to the “digital age.” Given the incredibly vehement opposition engendered by the last proposal Goodlatte sponsored, the Stop Online Piracy Act, it is worth taking a moment, before beginning a new debate, to consider the modern Internet environment and why SOPA failed.
I grew up in the musical community of the Roanoke Valley, so I can certainly understand the songwriters association’s desire to protect their creations. But the reality is that measures like SOPA will not achieve that goal. In fact, SOPA’s effect would be almost the exact opposite of its intended impact.
Kennedy is a C.P. Davis Scholar at Columbia University studying engineering. She is a graduate of Patrick Henry High School and the Roanoke Valley Governor’s School.
by Elizabeth W. Payne
Re: “Va. Tech adopts fees for 2013-14” (April 29 news story):
The Virginia Tech Board of Visitors faced some hard decisions in dealing with the increasing cost of an education at Tech. I am not debating any of the issues, but do wish to express an opinion on differential pricing for high-demand degrees.
Considering the outcry from many sources of the need to educate more students in math, science, engineering and high-technology fields, I question the prudence of Rector George Noland’s suggestion to increase the costs of that type of degree in coming years.
Payne, a professor emerita from Virginia Western Community College, lives in Roanoke.
By George F. Will
“He has, acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, endeavored to … cause, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, income tax audits or other income tax investigations to be initiated or conducted in a discriminatory manner.”
– Article 2, Section 1, Articles of Impeachment
– Adopted by the House Judiciary Committee, July 29, 1974
The burglary occurred in 1972, the climax came in 1974, but 40 years ago this week — May 17, 1973 — the Senate Watergate hearings began exploring the nature of Richard Nixon’s administration. Now the nature of Barack Obama’s administration is being clarified as revelations about IRS targeting of conservative groups merge with myriad Benghazi mendacities.
This administration aggressively hawked the fiction that the Benghazi attack was just an excessively boisterous movie review. Now we are told that a few wayward souls in Cincinnati, with nary a trace of political purpose, targeted for harassment political groups with “tea party” and “patriot” in their titles. The Washington Post has reported that the IRS also targeted groups that “criticized the government and sought to educate Americans about the U.S. Constitution.” Credit the IRS operatives with understanding who and what threatens the current regime. The Post also reports that harassing inquiries have come from other IRS offices, including Washington.
Jay Carney, whose unenviable job is not to explain but to explain away what his employers say, calls the IRS’ behavior “inappropriate.” No, using the salad fork for the entree is inappropriate. Using the IRS for political purposes is a criminal offense.
It remains to be discovered whether the chief executive is guilty of more than an amazingly convenient failure to superintend the excesses of some executive branch employees beyond the Allegheny Mountains. Meanwhile, file this under “What a tangled web we weave”:
The IRS official in charge of the division that makes politically sensitive allocations of tax-exempt status said last Friday that she learned of the targeting of conservatives from news reports. But a draft report by the IRS inspector general says this official was briefed on the matter two years ago.
An emerging liberal narrative is that this tempest is all the Supreme Court’s fault: The Citizens United decision — that corporations, particularly nonprofit advocacy groups, have First Amendment rights — so burdened the IRS with making determinations about who deserves tax exempt status that some political innocents in Cincinnati inexplicably decided to begin by rummaging through the affairs of conservatives. Ere long, presumably, they would have gotten around to groups with “progressive” in their titles.
Remember, all campaign “reform” proposals regulate political speech. And all involve the IRS in allocating speech rights.
Liberals, whose unvarying agenda is enlargement of government, suggest, with no sense of cognitive dissonance, that this IRS scandal is nothing more sinister than typical government incompetence. Five days before the IRS story broke, Obama, sermonizing 109 miles northeast of Cincinnati, warned Ohio State graduates about “creeping cynicism” and “voices” that “warn that tyranny is … around the corner.” Well.
He stigmatizes as the vice of cynicism what actually is the virtue of skepticism about the myth that the tentacles of the regulatory state are administered by disinterested operatives. And the voices that annoy him are those of the Founders.
Time was, progressives like the president 100 years ago, Woodrow Wilson, had the virtue of candor: He explicitly rejected the Founders’ fears of government. Modern enlightenment, he said, made it safe to concentrate power in Washington, and especially in disinterested executive branch agencies run by autonomous, high-minded experts. Today, however, progressivism’s unambiguous insinuation is that Americans must be minutely regulated because they are so dimwitted they will swallow nonsense. Such as: There was no political motive in the IRS targeting political conservatives.
Episodes like this separate the meritorious liberals from the meretricious. When the IRS story broke, The Washington Post led the paper with it, and, with an institutional memory of Watergate, published a blistering editorial demanding an Obama apology. The New York Times consigned the story to page 11 (its Page One lead was the umpteenth story about the end of the world being nigh because of global warming). Through Monday, the Times had expressed no editorial thoughts about the IRS. The Times’ Monday headline on the matter was: “IRS Focus on Conservatives Gives GOP an Issue to Seize On.” So that is the danger.
If Republicans had controlled both houses of Congress in 1973, Nixon would have completed his term. If Democrats controlled both today, the Obama administration’s lawlessness would go uninvestigated. Not even divided government is safe government, but it beats the alternative.
Will is a columnist with the Washington Post Writers Group.
Mary Davye Devoy
For years, victims’ rights groups and advocates have been given free rein to repeatedly tell their stories, push through rarely questioned state and federal legislation, and receive unlimited media attention.
Crime victims lead the charge in mandatory minimum sentences, stripping judges and juries of the ability to implement punishments based on the facts and circumstances of individual cases. They have lowered the threshold of defining what is a crime, assisted in making the standards of guilt easier, increased and expanded punishments, and approved of prosecutors holding all the cards when it comes to piling on charges.
Devoy is a volunteer advocatefor data-driven reform of Virginia’ssex offender registry and laws.
