Page 4 - Reedley Exponent 5-31-18 E-edition

The Reedley Exponent A4 Thursday, May 31, 2018 Editorial & Opinions
Serving “The World’s Fruit Basket” since 1891
A Mid Valley Publishing Newspaper
Founded March 26, 1891, in a two-story building on the corner of 11th and F streets, by A.S. Jones
Fred Hall — Publisher
In my OPINION
Jon Earnest — Editor
Chris Aguirre — Sports Editor Felicia Cousart Matlosz — Panorama Editor Budd Brockett — Editor Emeritus
QUOTE
“Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.”
— Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), “Eleonora”
For any of you readers who regularly — or even occasionally — visit this column, it’s been abundantly clear over the years that I consider advocacy journalism an oxymoron. Journalism is reporting on the facts as they occurred while advocacy is public relations which is designed, by nature, to be opinion forming. This profes- sion of journalism has, in recent years, taken a dark turn into an area where one is often chal- lenged to determine the dividing line between facts and embellishing hype!
Memorial Day ceremony speaker draws rave reviews on social media
Fred Hall
When one takes a civil lawsuit, which was not even filed in this area and is far from current in nature, and attempts to place the blame of malfeasance of company management at the feet of one of the company’s stockholders, it doesn’t pass the “smell test.” Appar- ently the congressman has a minority stake in a Bay Area company that had sexual shenanigans occur aboard a fundraising cruise. On that cruise, an innocent employee of the company was exposed to harassment.
From all empirical evidence Rep. Nunes was not on board, not a participant and was unaware of such an occurrence. The story was juicy and replete in detail, appealing to the lascivious nature of those with any sort of perversion. The story was old, unrelated to anyone from this area and, in my opinion, unnecessary. In short, the entire sorry episode was a nonstory.
Many of us own stock in companies that, from time to time, are involved in wrongdoing or involved in some accident, and the story never places the blame on individual stockholders.
Following closely on the heels of that “latebreaking” news was full coverage of three billboards on Highway 99 — just south of Fresno.
When was the last time anyone heard of a group of three bill- boards making the local newspaper? Apparently the trigger for coverage of any event is “if it’s anti-Nunes, we cover it wall to wall.”
About the same time all of this is occurring, there is an editorial cartoon panel featuring the deliberate misspelling as “Devil Nunes.” Know what? I have absolutely no problem with that because it is being proffered as editorial opinion on their editorial page. That is entirely legitimate — but it isn’t when the straight news columns are abused and the paper attempts to forcefeed propaganda as real news when it obviously isn’t. The cartoon and its message were infantile
but it, at least, was legitimately presented on the editorial page. The desire to defeat Devin Nunes is one of those rights which has been constitutionally guaranteed. But the press should not be about destroying the reputation of an entire business which has always supplied correct information to the American voting public. Nunes, to me and millions of other Americans, has always been something of a bright spot for California in his pursuit of the truth involving the Mueller investigation and his representation of this state. California’s real embarrassment, so far, has been our governor, attorney general, Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell and the others who have so adamantly
resisted the results of a legitimate election.
Certainly, everyone is entitled to a dissenting opinion but don’t try
to package a load of garbage as a Trojan Horse and sell your jaded view as being important and based on fact. I don’t know Devin Nunes and have never even met him, but I implore that everyone judge him on his record and not the words of a “sniper.”
But, as always, that’s only one man’s opinion.
The Memorial Day speech by Capt. Skylar “Voodoo” Bautista of the 144th Fighter Wing in Fresno defi- nitely made a big impression on local social media — in particular The Ex- ponent’s Facebook page.
“Captain Bautista’s speech was one of the best I’ve ever heard,” posted Dakota Baehr. “He was AWESOME,” read another post from Shelby Lusk.
It was little wonder. The 32-year- old commissioned officer in the Air Force touched a range of emotions in his 15-minute speech.
Early on, he briefly teared up de- scribing seeing the scene at Reedley Cemetery.”This was easy to practice without the 700 flags,” he said as he wiped his eyes. He saw old friends in the audience, and talked about the Lusk and Martinez families who each had fallen heroes.
“When I was asked if I would speak here today on Memorial Day, for the first time I can remember in my adult life I considered saying ‘no.’ If you know me, you know that I rare- ly miss an opportunity to be on stage, speak in front of a group of speak my mind in general. But today is differ- ent.”
After briefly talking about his love sharing about the greatness of the United States military – particu- larly the Air Force and America’s air superiority — Bautista said he was “woefully unqualified to speak” on the holiday. He then proceeded to give an address that earned him a
well-deserved standing ovation from audience members.
•••
“While we all appreciate the need
to honor the fallen, how we do this is not often so clear,” Bautista said. “Some [people] place wreaths, some say prayers, some still trek into the jungles of past wars and dig for the remains of servicemen so that they finally can be brought home and laid to rest.
“How do we honor our fallen sol- diers? How much is enough?”
Bautista gave an example of the dedicated military brass at Dover Air Base in Delaware. There, officials dili- gently guard and meticulously comb over military members who died overseas and are returned to the base. Next, he shared of staff at the Nation- al Cemetery in Santa Nella, north of Los Banos. His grandparents are bur- ied there, with his grandmother laid to rest just last week.
“The honor guard, chaplains and directors that perform military buri- als are all committed, professional and respectful,” he said. “And they don’t ask for a dime to honor a fallen soldier with a final resting place and remem- brance.”
Finally, Bautista told of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery that has been un- der armed guard since 1921. “Dark- ness, rain and snow does not deter the guard from protecting his fallen brothers, who the nation has not for-
gotten.”
•••
Bautista’s ex- amples all led to his point that the American soldier’s sacrifice is unique in human history. One that some may not agree with.
A perfect example of advocacy journalism
would be an article in one of the area papers about what was es- sentially a nonstory. The only apparent motive was the continued bashing of Rep. Devin Nunes, first of all because he is a Republican — an elected Republican is indeed rare in California — and secondly because he has been supportive of our president. “Resisters” can’t tolerate those people!
Jon Earnest
“Our right to possess a firearm, and maybe even stand against that same government should it become tyrannical. That’s something that’s tru- ly rare around the world. Our right to practice any religion, or sing any song. We can even denounce the very coun- try that provides us these rights. All without fear of government reprisal.”
Bautista said America cares for its dead and remembers the fallen. But he added, above all, “we must live a life respectful and worthy of their sac- rifice — as much as we don’t deserve to. And I pray we do this 24-7, 365.”
Powerful words, indeed. And defi- nitely worthy of the ovation Bautista received in person and praise he re- ceived on social media.
By Harold Pease
Guest columnist
Most people ignorantly refer to our political system as a democracy although this word is not in the Dec- laration of Independence, U.S. Constitution, Bill of Rights, or any document given to us by our Found- ing Fathers. Our Pledge of Allegiance to the flag iden- tifies our form of govern- ment as a republic. Benja- min Franklin wrote in 1759: “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contest- ing the vote.” A republic has seven major components each specifically designed to keep it from becoming a democracy as democracy eventually destroys liberty.
First, the importance of majority rules is recognized but limited. Is the majority always right? No! Mother made this point when her teenager asked to smoke marijuana on the basis that everyone was smoking it. “If everyone jumped off a bridge would you?”
Second, minority rights (less than 50 percent) are protected from the major- ity. In Franklin’s analogy, the lamb had the right to exist even if the majority, the wolves, said differently. A lynch mob is a democra- cy; everyone votes but the one being lynched. Even if caught in the act of a crime the defendant is entitled to the protection of law, a judge, jury, witnesses for his defense, and a lawyer to argue his innocence; all nec- essary but expensive. Then, if found guilty, hanged. Be- cause democracy only con-
siders majority rules it is much less expensive. A rope tossed over a tree limb will do.
Third, a republic is based upon natural inalien- able rights first acknowl- edged in the Declaration of Independence. This docu- ment asserted to the world that we acknowledge that humans have rights from a source higher than mere man. A reference to deity is mentioned five times. If there is no God there can be no inalienable rights coming from him, and we are left with man as God. What man is good enough?
Fourth, a republic em- phasizes individual differ- ences rather than absolute equality, as democracy does. We are not equal, even from the womb, and never will be if equality means same- ness. One baby with a cleft pallet needs three surgeries to look normal. Some come out of the womb with a lap- top, others with a basketball, and the real tough deliveries are those bringing their golf clubs. One of my first great insights in life was that ev- eryone was better at ev- erything than I. The second was that life is not fair and never will be. Free men are not equal and equal men are not free. Genetics makes one fat, another bald, and gives yet another terminal cancer in his youth.
Even economically it is not possible to be equal. Should I give each student a million dollars in exchange for everything they now own, shave their heads, and give them identical uniforms, to approximate sameness as much as pos-
sible, with the only require- ment that they return in five years with some ledger of net worth? Would they be the same in what was left of the million? No! Why does government try so hard to do what is impossible? A re- public, unlike a democracy, looks upon our differences as assets.
Fifth, limited govern- ment is also a major aspect of a republic. Centralized government is good so long as it remembers that when it oversteps its bounds it becomes the greatest ob- stacle to liberty as it pulls decision-making power away from the individual. Excessive government, as the cause of the American Revolution, is never forgot- ten. The Constitution as cre- ated handcuffed the govern- ment from dominating our lives by listing the powers of the federal government (Article I, Section 8). The Founders understood that the more government at the top the less at the bottom, and that was the opposite of freedom.
Sixth, a republic has fre- quent elections with options. Frequent elections happen in some socialist countries, so this alone does not en- sure liberty. In fact, it may be somewhat deceiving as it fosters the notion that we choose, thus deserve, our elected officers. It also as- sumes that the people are correctly informed, which assumes a free press and equal access to all informa- tion. The part of the phrase “with options” is the part that ensures liberty. Elec- tions under socialism pro- vide choices but often no op-
tions when all participants are from the same party.
Seventh, there is a healthy fear of the emo- tion of the masses and of its potential to destabilize natural law upon which real freedom is based, as for example the notion that some one else’s wealth belongs to them. Such de- stroys freedom as it had in Athens and Rome. We need a caring, sensitive, compassionate government but emotion must not be al- lowed to overwhelm reason and time-tested natural law constants. Aristotle taught that the poor will always envy the rich, and the rich will always have contempt for the poor. A republic will not allow the poor to destroy the rich in their quest for the wealth of the rich, but does incentivize the poor to increase their wealth thus becoming the middle class, which in time become the largest body.
As explained, democra- cy does not protect liberty. In Ben Franklin’s analogy it would have allowed the wolves to have eaten the lamb simply because the lamb had been outvoted. No wonder our founders reject- ed democracy in favor of a republic.
Harold Pease is a syn- dicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedi- cated his career to studying the writings of the Found- ing Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught his- tory and political science from this perspective for more than 30 years at Taft College in Kern County.
What does a republic look like?
“These heroes
didn’t die for a specific race, or sex, or even a group – they died defending our rights provided by the Constitu- tion,” he said. “All of our rights. Our right to have state as well as federal government that are formed by elect- ed officials. And our right to freely say what we think about each other and those elected officials.
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