Scott P. Richert
A Cautionary Tale
Jury selection began yesterday in the murder trial of Harlan Drake, the man who has confessed to killing pro-life activist James Pouillon, but the Associated Press reports that Shiawassee County, Michigan, prosecutors “have warned a judge that it will be ‘almost impossible’ to seat jurors who haven’t seen Pouillon’s demonstrations or formed an opinion about him.” Pouillon, the AP reports, “was everywhere—the farmers market, City Hall, the county courthouse, football games—with verbal taunts that were as shocking as his signs.” While the national media is finally covering this side of the story, Chronicles gave its readers the full story four months ago.
When pro-life activist James Pouillon was murdered in Owosso, Michigan, on September 11, I read a few dozen accounts from both national and Michigan news sources and quickly decided I had a handle on the story. Harlan Drake, the man who has admitted to murdering Pouillon, seems deeply disturbed, and he had murdered another man and pursued a third. While neither of Drake’s other targets was publicly involved in pro-life activities, the Shiawassee County Sheriff’s Department and the prosecutor’s office both confirmed that Drake had told authorities that he had targeted Pouillon for his “pro-life stance.”
An Arresting Moment
Five years ago, I wrote of the horror that Aaron Wolf and I experienced as we spent a morning photographing the old Turner School here in Rockford. Built in 1898, the massive brick-and-stone structure was closed 80 years later by a school board attempting in vain to avoid a lawsuit over busing. Today, little effort is being made to maintain the exterior, and weeds grow up in the lawn out front and the former playground in back. Four or five days out of every week, passersby might assume that the building is still shuttered.
Ethnic Cleansing
Some memories of auld lang syne on New Year’s Day 2010. This Rockford Files first appeared in the August 2002 issue of Chronicles.
Multiplication Tables
No one can accuse Mandolyna Theodoracopulos of not being provocative, and I read her recent post “Jon and Kate Plus Hate” with interest. I entirely agree with her criticisms of in vitro fertilization, and indeed would go well beyond them: Just because science allows us to do something does not mean that we should, and one does not have to accept (as I do) the Catholic Church’s teaching on sexual morality to recognize that there are sound reasons for believing that procreation should not be separated from the sexual act itself.
All Local, All the Time
One of the talk-radio stations here in Rockford bills itself as “All Local. All Day.” It is an interesting slogan, in light of increasing reports of the impending failure of local media; it would be even more interesting if it (or a version of it) were not used by hundreds of other talk-radio stations across the United States. The station managers and staff may have the best of intentions, but most of these stations are also part of a national (or regional) chain of media outlets, and the “All Local” format is most often a business decision made in a boardroom far from the studio where it must be turned into reality.
The United States, In Congress Assembled
“All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States . . . ” Thus run the first words of Article I, Section 1, of the U.S. Constitution, clearly laying out the Framers’ understanding of the nature and the role of Congress. Everything else enumerated in Article I—the various powers of Congress to raise an army and to make a declaration of war, to mint currency, to establish uniform regulations for naturalization and interstate commerce, and so on—are all, in the thinking of the Framers of the Constitution, legislative functions to be performed by the representatives of the several states, in Congress assembled. This corporate nature of Congress is something that we often forget—and something which helps point the way toward a restoration of a government that is truly federal, rather than national.
Everything In Its Place
On December 9, 2008, as I read through the federal criminal complaint against the latest Illinois governor to be indicted for the merest portion of his crimes, I could not help but feel uneasy. Sure, it was great fun to imagine Governor Hot Rod sweating it out in his holding cell, awaiting arraignment later in the day. Even the most casual observer of Illinois politics knew that Milorad Blagojevich, our S.O.B., had to be corrupt. After all, you don’t get elected governor of Illinois as a reformer if you actually are one.
From the Archives: Stemming the Tide
On August 9, 2001, during a speech from his ranch in Crawford, Texas, President George W. Bush put an end to several months of debate surrounding government funding of research on stem cells derived from human embryos. After discussing his administration’s research into the matter and declaring his own “deeply held beliefs” in science and technology and that “human life is a sacred gift from our Creator,” President Bush announced his decision:
Is It 1982 or 1974?
Much of the commentary on the current economic crisis has compared 2008 to 1982, the depth of the last major recession. But there are some important differences, chief among them that, despite losses in manufacturing in the early 80’s, the United States still emerged with significant manufacturing capacity. Whatever happens in 2008, that’s not going to be the case: Manufacturing is down to ten percent of the American economy—and still falling.
And that points to another difference: Despite his many failings, Ronald Reagan at least understood that, unless a country makes things, it has no economic independence. That’s why he was willing to act pragmatically, despite his own stated commitment to free-trade ideology.
Those who claim his mantle today, however, are not simply ideologues on free trade; they have become convinced that money can breed money—and, moreover, that it’s a good thing for it to do so.
Giving the Devil His Due
Over at Takimag, Chronicles contributing editor Tom Piatak has a thought-provoking piece on the proposal to extend $25 to $50 billion in government-backed loans to the Big Three automakers. Among other points completely ignored by those who reflexively shout “Let them die!” whenever the American auto industry is mentioned are, as Tom notes, that as many as three million U.S. jobs may be lost; that the “tax loss from such a catastrophe would be over $150 billion over three years”; and that over 850,000 retirees receive pensions and health benefits from the Big Three–and taxpayers are on the hook for at least some of that cost through the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.
In other words, the extension of $25 to $50 billion in loans may be the cheapest way out of this mess. Predictably, though, the same people who declared that we had to bail out Wall Street have drawn the line at Midwestern Main Streets.
Tom’s thoughtful, reasoned, and fact-filled post drew a response from Richard Spencer, modestly titled “A Modest Proposal.”
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