living liberty september 2009

A PUBLICATION OF THE EVERGREEN FREEDOM FOUNDATION 1

n the stage play called public education, the stage manager is playing the lead. The lead actors are

squinting from the back of the nosebleed section. Mean-while, the plot goes from bad to worse.

The crux of the plot begins with this crisis: We have forgotten what public education is. Somewhere along the line, “public education” came to be synonymous with the institution—the “public school system.” But public education isn’t a system or an institution. It’s a mission. And the sooner we remember that, the sooner that mission can be accomplished.

What is the mission? To ensure that every child has access to a good education.

It is absurd to assume that one prototypical building with a cookie cutter curriculum could meet the needs of every child in the state―or even in a community, for that matter.

The script makes it clear that children learn differently. No group of legislators in Olympia could prescribe a program that would meet the educational needs of every child in the state. But then why do they keep trying? We’ve given the leading roles to policymakers and spe-cial interests—whose place is really backstage.

This brings us to the cast of characters. As civil servants, policymakers are responsible for

ensuring that children have access to good public school-ing. They are not, however, responsible for determining how that should be accomplished for each and every stu-dent. That task is too big for any one body of individu-als. What’s more, the further decisions are made from the classroom, the less likely they will actually meet the needs of the students who fill the desks each day.

The next group to be cast is special interest groups. They were supposed to be brought on as talent agents but somehow wound up with leading roles. The Wash-ington Education Association is responsible for further-ing the interests of its dues-paying members, not com-

health care: what you and I can do 7 take the fIeld wIth glenn beck on sept. 26 12

LIVING LIBERTYSEPTEMBER 2009 | WWW.EFFWA.ORG A PUBLICATION OF THE EVERGREEN FREEDOM FOUNDATION

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I munities and families. This being the case, we shouldn’t expect child-centered reform to come from them.

The penultimate group—who do actually deserve to be on stage—are the men and women who stand at the black board, grade the papers, supervise recess, hand out hall passes, and do all they can to motivate the hearts and minds of impressionable young people. While good educators are more aware than anyone that public education is a mission, they aren’t immune to bias and shouldn’t be expected to reform the field that pro-vides their income.

At the end of the day, one group is left standing at audi-tions: parents and communities. Parents are in the best position to identify what their children need and apply pressure for it. Many families have next to no options when it comes to public education. This lack of options is often, for many parents, like not making the call-back list. But unlike actors, parents are already paying into the system—a system regulated by policymakers who are accountable to the voters. Thus, parents have more leverage than they think. Most important, parents stand to gain nothing more than a quality education for their children.

The Saga of Public Education plays on …

It’s time to get out of the nosebleed section

“ . . . public education isn’t a system or an institution. It’s a mission.”

by Diana Cieslak

2 LIVING LIBERTY

34

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“Quote”

Evergreen Freedom Foundation PO Box 552

Olympia, WA 98507(360) 956-3482

Fax (360) 352-1874 [email protected] • www.effwa.org

VOLUME 19, Issue 9

EFF’s mission is to advance

individual liberty, free enterprise and

limited, accountable government.

This Issue

Publisher:Lynn Harsh

Editors:Steven MaggiRich Frias

Layout:Joel Sorrell

SEPTEMBER 2009

LETTER FROM LYNN | by Lynn Harsh A FEW THOUGHTS LABOR DAY SHOULD HONOR WORKER CHOICE, NOT FORCED UNIONISM by Rachel Culbertson and Scott Dilley NOT MUCH ACTION IN 2009 I-900 STATUS REPORT by Brett Davis LABOR DAY MEETS BACK TO SCHOOL | by Diana Cieslak and Scott Dilley AN UNFORTUNATE PAIR

DIGITAL RAMBO | by Scott St. Clair CYBER COMANDOS ON THE INTERNET

“RACE TO THE TOP” SETS A DANGEROUS PRECEDENT | by Diana Cieslak

HEALTH CARE: WHAT YOU AND I CAN DO | by Bob Williams

YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE | by Irene Endicott HELPING AMERICA VOTE? | by Ben Hayter QUESTIONS ABOUT WASHINGTON’S COMPLIANCE WITH FEDERAL ELECTION LAW GOV. GREGOIRE DENIES EFF RECORDS REQUEST, CLAIMS “EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE” by Michael Reitz

DIARY OF A FREEDOM LOVING MOM | by Judy Parkins JUST HAVE A LITTLE FAITH

EFF URGES STATE SUPREME COURT TO TAKE PROPERTY RIGHTS CASE by Michael Reitz

“Always love your country—but

never trust your government!”

– Robert Novak

So how do parents exercise that leverage? Start by getting the facts. Next, join the solution: ask the hard questions, research alternatives, talk to the experts, and never take “no” for an answer when it comes to whether or not we’re going to accomplish the mission of public education.

The Evergreen Freedom Foundation provides the tools to equip families who are committed to the mis-sion. Check out ReportCardWA.com on Sept. 9th for the launch of the Middle School and High School Report Cards. Then jump over to FlunkedSolutions.com to talk with us and with other parents about what you found, what can be done, and how to get involved.

Public education is not a lost cause. It starts with defining our terms, identifying our players, and calling a spade a spade. Unions won’t come to the rescue; they were never designed to. Policymakers can’t possibly leg-

In conjunction with the September 9th launch of EFF’s Middle and High School Report Cards, the Citizen Action Net-work will be conducting a week-long campaign to spread the word. Through-out the week of September 14-18, we will blanket the state with report card materials, attempting to reach parents, policy-makers, and educators with the truth about their schools.

Visit www.flunkedsolutions.com to find out how you can join our effort and be part of the solution.

islate every student to effective learning, and their efforts tend to make matters worse. Educa-tors, while responsible for performing quality work, cannot and should not be held responsible for the success of “public education.”

It all goes back to the family, to the community, to the parents.

If that’s you, it’s time to get out of the nosebleed sec-tion. Get the facts. Join the solution. Reclaim the mis-sion of public education.

Public Education Continued from page 1 . . .

Pg. 12 9.26.09JOIN EFF AND GLENN BECK AT SAFECO FIELD


Letter from LynnLETTER FROM LY NNby Lynn Harsh

A Few Thoughts

FIrST…ON ThE BIG PICTurEMore battles were lost than were won in the war that

won America’s independence. General Washington struggled to maintain a fighting force that could even be called adequate. It was not uncommon for up to half of his soldiers to go missing: some because they had fami-lies whose survival depended on tending crops and live-stock; some because the difficulties and terrors of war were too much for their constitutions.

But enough soldiers and supporters persevered to win against the arrogance of the British crown.

Gratitude for the sacrifices they made on our behalf tempts us to put our Founders on pedestals, or grant them something akin to sainthood. But they were not demi-gods. Were we to have worked with or around them, we would have discovered that some of our Founders were impatient, ill-mannered and bad-tempered.

This acknowledgment is not meant to excuse bad behavior; only to note that it exists in all people at any point in time—even people with vices who, nonethe-less, have changed the world for good.

Though most of us seek to slay the worst of our lower natures, it is comforting to know that our lives have meaning even when we fail. It gives us reason to get up and go at it again. Furthermore, the ever-changing size of our ideological army—sometimes large and some-time miniscule—should not dissuade us from moving forward with what we know to be true and right. Neither should the arrogance of those who seem to think they are the American “crown” or the fact that we will lose many battles between here and where we need to go.

Victory goes to the people and leaders still standing when the dust settles. Let that be us.

ThE myTh OF GOvErNmENT JOB CrEATIONDo your elected officials think it’s their duty to create

jobs? If so, please don’t vote for them. If that’s what you think, too, read on. Perhaps I can convince you to reconsider.

Politicians and policies are often evaluated based on how many jobs government “created.” But jobs are merely a means to an end. The end goal is wealth cre-ation, whether it’s a modest or lavish amount. Govern-ment doesn’t have any of its own money, so it can’t create wealth. People do that. (When government prints more money than the amount of goods and services available to back it up, wealth is eroded, not created.)

Government’s duty is to protect individuals’ rights to pursue opportunities as equals one to another under the law. Besides, if job creation were really the end goal of government, politi-cians would decree that government projects would have to be built by hand—no motor-ized equipment would be allowed to make the process efficient. More people would have jobs that way.

But here’s the reality. Economic progress depends on being able to provide the same or better goods and services with fewer workers. This means some jobs are eliminated. But it also means those workers are freed

up for more productive new jobs. Fixating on the number of jobs causes blindness to the value being created from jobs.

Marketplace wages do two things that seem to oppose one another, but actually work out well for everyone in the end. Employees are drawn toward the job where they bring the highest value and get paid accordingly. Employers have to con-sider what they both gain and give up when they hire each employee (opportunity cost). In general, this tension sorts itself out to ensure that resources are used at their highest value.

That’s why government “job-creation” is actually anti-green. It does not allow economic activity to produce the highest value possible with scarce resources, including human effort. If left to the marketplace, profit-seeking will always create jobs that use scarce resources as effi-ciently as possible. The environment will benefit from a more efficient use of resources.

When government “creates jobs,” resources are not used to their highest efficiency. Think about the Cash for Clunkers program. Cars that could have been resold to college students or families struggling financially were disabled and trashed instead. This is an extraordinarily foolish use of resources. Saving two miles or more per gallon on gasoline does not make up for this waste.

ThEN ThErE’S hEALTh CArE…Or hEALTh INSurANCE

We seem to be confusing health care with health insur-ance. Insurance is meant to protect us from unforeseen or unavoidable disaster. It was never meant to be used for routine care.

If you could buy an insurance policy for your auto-mobile that covered new tires, oil changes and other basic maintenance, the premium would be high. That’s because the insurance companies would have to figure out how much money you and others in your similar cir-cumstance would likely spend in a year and charge you enough to cover their costs. Plus, they would need to

make profits to pay shareholders, conduct research and development and make infra-

structure improvements. If you had an old car, or had poor

maintenance habits, or bought a model that was notoriously unre-

liable, your insurance company would either refuse to cover you, or your premium would be raised. This would create

incentive for you to buy the most reliable car possible and maintain

it well. Otherwise, it would cost you lots of dough. But if the government said it was your right to have

basic car maintenance, and then they mandated that insurance companies provide you with bumper-to-bum-per coverage, what do you think would happen? Costs would skyrocket and cost-shifting would begin.

Pretty soon the infrastructure created to execute the program would become bloated, expensive and unre-sponsive. People who know nothing about cars and their maintenance would be making decisions that should be left to you and your mechanic.

Lobbyists for GPS systems would argue that their product is indispensible to the spatially challenged. Lobbyists for V-8 engines would say their customers need the confidence boost that comes from having a hot engine under the hood. Lobbyists for stereo systems would argue that mental well-being depends on custom-ers being able to listen to flawlessly presented music.

And the majority of state elected officials, having heard from constituents in each of these special inter-ests, would agree and pass new mandates onto insur-ance companies wanting to do business in the state. The costs for this would then be passed to you in the form of higher premiums.

Many insurance companies would finally reach a tip-ping point and refuse to do business in certain states. This would shrink the pool of companies competing for your business, thus increasing costs even more. Costs would continue to escalate, but your service and qual-ity would deteriorate. You would have little incentive to take good care of your vehicle because it was going to be handled and paid for “by someone else.”

Congress would reason that more intervention was the remedy. And given enough time, most people would think “car care” had always been financed this way. The care part would be sacrificed unnecessarily for a messed up financing mechanism.

Most members of Congress and state houses would remain oblivious to the fact that the source of the prob-

lem was them. They would remain oblivious until the day they decided it was necessary for the federal

government to take over the automobile insur-ance industry and run it themselves.

Then they would come home to town hall meetings filled with so-called “Brownshirts” and

“Neanderthals”…I mean unhappy constituents. They would then pause warily to determine whether they could outlast you and the rest of the

angry crowd. Only time will tell.

“Cars that could have been resold to college students or families

struggling financially were disabled and trashed instead.

This is an extraordinarily foolish use of resources.”

4 LIVING LIBERTY

hile many of us view Labor Day as the last opportunity for a summer fling—barbecues,

weekend getaways, and trips to the lake—maybe this year it’s time for us to view it from a different perspec-tive.

In 1882 the Central Labor Union in New York City organized the first Labor Day. Two years later, the holi-day was designated to be on the first Monday in Sep-tember, declared as a “workingmen’s holiday.” The Central Labor Union encouraged the states to officially celebrate on this date as well; and with the growth of labor unions came a nationally celebrated day, tradition-ally commemorated by street parades and festivals to showcase the strength of labor organizations.

The details of this history have seemed to settle with time. “Worker freedom,” people were told at the begin-ning of the labor movement in the late 1800s, was secured by individual laborers banding together to gain their rights as a collective. Time, filled with irony, has told a different tale. The supposedly idyllic drive toward the “worker freedom” of yesteryear has come at the expense of individual liberty.

If labor unions truly celebrated the American worker, why are workers in many states forced to lose part of their paycheck to union dues, even if they don’t want union representation? Why do those dues go to serve political interests rather than just toward collective bar-gaining? Shouldn’t unions be more concerned about the outcome of their constituents’ contracts rather than gaining political clout and increasing their numbers?

It didn’t always used to be this way. In fact, American Federation of Labor founder Samuel Gompers believed in “trade unionism pure and simple,” something that crossed partisan lines and focused on the worker. When he served as president of the AF of L from 1886 to 1894, Gompers possessed a philosophy for labor relations that centered on simply winning compromises from busi-

ness through collective bargaining—and steered clear of politics and socialism.

This singular, worker-centered focus began to change, however, in the post-World War II years. With the dawn of the age of technology in the 1960s and 70s, unions began to turn their atten-tion away from the private sector, where union membership has declined for more than 30 years as a result of a dwindling industrial sector. Today only 12 percent of workers are mem-bers of a union, down from 35 per-cent in the 1950s. In private indus-tries, only 7 percent of workers are unionized. Because of this trend, unions set their eyes on the public sector, where union membership was quickly increasing with the creation of more government jobs.

The emergence of these public-sector unions has had serious consequences for the scope, cost, and size of government. Public-sector labor unions represent 56 percent of government workers in Washington, com-pared to 14 percent in private industries. Unlike the pri-vate sector, the public sector operates according to a set of rules that does not include competition, efficiency, or scarcity. Government lacks competition. While private unionized industries are subject to the corrective forces of the market, there is little incentive for union nego-

erformance audits are the Rod-ney Dangerfield of state govern-

ment—they get no respect. First, per-formance audit funding was raided to help balance the 2009-11 budget. Then the State Auditor’s “improved” website actually made it more diffi-cult to find performance audit reports. That brings us to this year’s report on the status of the implementation of performance audit recommenda-tions. The report, which was due to be publicly released by July 1 according to RCW 43.09.470, was released on July 13—12 days late—and only after this policy ana-lyst called (well after July 1) to get a copy of the report, only to find out it wasn’t completed yet. Unfortunately, the report seems to be a testament to inaction.

First, some background: In Washington state, the authority to carry out performance audits was created by a state voter ini tiative (I-900) in 2005, which also defined follow-up steps once a performance audit is completed by the State Auditor. These checks were created to help ensure that performance audit recommendations actually have a chance of being acted upon, rather than relegated to the infamous and bountiful displays of government shelf art.

Under the law, within 30 days of an audit’s release, the governing body of the audited agency must hold a

Wby Rachel Culbertson and Scott DilleyLabor Day should honor worker choice, not forced unionism

tiators to ever consider the government’s—and taxpay-ers’—bottom line.

Over the years, unions in both economic sectors sought increasing amounts of political clout to further their agendas. This political aggression has done little to prevent decline in private-sector union membership or improve working conditions. In order to guarantee more members, unions want to “reform” our system through measures such as the Employee Free Choice Act. If you can’t win according to the rules, simply change them.

This attitude of the end justifying the means is just further proof that today’s version of organized labor has slipped dramatically from truly representing the interests of individuals.

These types of policies fly in the face of what collective bar-gaining was intended to be. It

Pby Brett DavisNot much action in 2009 I-900 status report

public hearing to consider the audit findings. Next, the State Legislature must consider the findings through its appropriations process. The Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee (JLARC), the legislature’s audit committee, must produce an annual report that demonstrates the audited agency’s progress in implementing the find ings. JLARC must also explain why any recommen dations are not being implemented.

The status of five new audit reports released since May 2008 (not including an additional report during that period which did not include any specific recommendations to the Legislature) are included in this year’s JLARC report. The recommendations include performance audits on 1) Open Public Records Practices at 30 Government Entities; 2) Collection of State Debt; 3) School Districts’ Administration and Support Services; 4) Use of Impact Fees in Federal Way, Olympia, Maple Valley, Redmond and Vancouver; and 5) the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission.

In addition, the report includes an update on the status of nine unresolved recommendations to the Legislature in JLARC’s previous annual report. The recommendations include performance audits on 1) the Department of Health’s Health Professions Quality Assurance program; 2) the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Washington State Ferries System; 3) Education Service Districts; 4) DOT’s Managing and Reducing Congestion

in Puget Sound; and 5) DOT’s Administration and Overhead.

The results are…underwhelming! The bottom line is that of the eight newly issued 2008 recommendations, three were adopted as presented, two denoted recommendations where other relevant circumstances applied and three had no information available. Of the previously unresolved 2007 recommendations, one was adopted as presented, the Legislature made a different policy choice on another, in two cases bills were introduced on the appropriate topic but not adopted, two denoted other relevant circumstances that applied and three had no information available.

Only four of the 17 total recommendations in the report have been adopted as presented, and six are classified under the “no information” category. These results—or lack thereof—raise a few questions: Since JLARC is tasked with explaining why any recommendations are not being implemented, doesn’t the public deserve better than to be told there is “no information”—which the report explains as “No related information was available about formal action by the Legislature”? Also, shouldn’t there be more action taken on 2007 recommendations? After all, that’s two years ago!

Perhaps JLARC’s report was late this year because there wasn’t much to report and members were hoping everyone would just forget about it.

“uNLIKE ThE PrIvATE SECTOr, ThE PuBLIC SECTOr OPErATES ACCOrDING TO A

SET OF ruLES ThAT DOES NOT INCLuDE COmPETITION, EFFICIENCy, Or SCArCITy.”

“. . . Gompers possessed

a philosophy for labor

relations that centered

on simply winninG compromises

from business throuGh collective

barGaininG—and steered clear of

politics and socialism.”

Continued on page 12


Planning for Life A complimentAry workshop for eff members And friends

purpose Protect assets from taxes (especially the death tax)

Learn about Charitable Remainder Trusts

Learn about Living Trusts, wills and annuities

Use your life values in estate planning

Choose the right tools for your particular situation

Discuss the current turbulent economy

Learn where to get help

Topics

Alan W. Pratt, CEP, CAPFounder, Pratt Legacy Advisors. 30 years experience in financial services, the past 17 focused on wealth preserva-tion through his Legacy Planning from the Heart process. Board member, The International Association of Advisors in Philanthropy.

Glenn D. Price, J.D.Price & Farrington, PLLC. Graduate of Harvard College and Duke University Law School. 30 years experience in estate, tax, retirement, business and asset protection planning. Presents “Protect Your Estate: The Nuts and Bolts of Estate Planning.”

PRESENTERS

Responding to requests from EFF mem-

bers, this workshop is presented for those

who want to know how to make plans to

protect hard-earned assets now as well as

when the end of life comes. Perhaps you

have never gotten around to doing this.

Maybe you have a plan that needs a tune-

up. If you are unsure that your estate plan

is complete and up to date, this workshop

will give you new ideas and tools that

work. The presenters have been carefully

selected. Each is expert in his field. And

they both love liberty!

Please feel free to bring your attorney or

other professional family advisor. No ser-

vices are sold at this workshop. No one

will ask you to sign up for anything. The

entire day is free, including lunch. It will

be a day full of great information and

good conversation. We look forward to

having you with us (attendance is limited

to 30 people).

september 17 spokAne

Thursday, September 17, 2009

9:30 a.m. – 4 p.m.

The Spokane Club

Gourmet Room

1002 W. Riverside

Spokane, WA 99201

Complimentary buffet luncheon

Free parking

Please RSVP by contacting Laurie at 1-800-769-6617 by September 14, 2009.

t’s fitting to look at Labor Day and “Back to School” side by side since many believe the teachers’ union

is the champion of quality education. After all, that’s how the union identifies itself. The Washington Educa-tion Association’s website reads: “We are people who care about our students, schools, public education and each other. Working together to improve education in Washington state, we are the Washington Education Association.”

In reality, the union’s function is twofold: promote their members’ welfare and collect dues. Neither involves the quality of education, and neither is supposed to.

The American Heritage Dictionary says a labor union is “an organization of wage earners formed for the pur-pose of serving the members’ interests with respect to wages and working conditions.” And that’s all. This point is crucial not because it could discredit teachers, but because Washington residents must stop waiting for the union to ensure—or even pursue—the success of public education.

Too often we blame teacher unions for neglecting the good of students. But we’re wrong to expect them to have students’ best interests at heart to begin with. The WEA fulfills its duties impeccably. The public must be reminded what those duties are and what they are not.

Their stance on rewarding effective teachers offers a pretty good picture.

The WEA and teacher unions nationwide have been reluctant to adopt proposals allowing teachers to receive better pay when student achievement goes up. Naturally, providing some kind of monetary incentive to teachers who teach well could encourage further innovation and foster effective teaching techniques. Some teachers do a great job, while others don’t. Why shouldn’t those who do well be rewarded? Teacher unions continue to be on the wrong side of this issue.

Why? This brings up an important qualifier we need to add to our job description for unions: to equally pro-mote their members’ welfare. Some of this stems from the faulty assumption that teachers are interchange-able. Some unions don’t even differentiate between professions: the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) claims to advance the best interests of nurses and janitors as if they were indistinguishable!

Similarly, tenure can’t come into play if unions want to stay on top. When belts must be tightened and teach-ers let go, it’s the newest and most energetic who will go first. This ostensibly protects the most seasoned teachers, but in reality, guarantees that the highest dues-paying members stay employed. Again, the union is ful-filling its duties well; those duties simply don’t include advancing quality education.

Unions have their time and place. That place, however, is not in education reform. The longer Washington par-ents look to the WEA as the benevolent champion of public education, the longer our children will be stuck with a subpar status quo.

On the other hand, if we recognize the WEA for what it is—an expensive collective bargaining and lobbying organization—the sooner education quality will finally start looking up.

Labor Day meets Back to School: An unfortunate pairby Diana Cieslak and Scott Dilley

I

“Unions have their time and place. That

place, however, is not in education reform.”

Our next Planning for Life workshop will be presented on Thursday, October 8, 2009 at Embassy Suites in Lynnwood, WA.

6 LIVING LIBERTY

“thousand-fold retaliation” against the United States or anyone else who stood up to it. But the only aggressive action actually taken against us was taken using a keyboard as a weapon and virus-laden HTML computer code as the ammunition.

Is this how we’ll wage war in the future—fewer and fewer soldiers and Marines in the field, and more and more electronic devices or remote-controlled drones taking it to the enemy? If it is, then

“ ‘race to the top’ motivates states

to compete with each other not for

the approval of their citizens but

for the approval of the federal government, specifically the

executive branch.”

hy do we educate our kids? Is it for their benefit and the

good of our communities or for the sake of Washington, D.C.?

President Obama’s new “Race to the Top” program embodies a “D.C. knows best” approach that ought to have state and local policy makers—and parents—worried.

Debuted on July 24, the “Race to the Top” program is a competition between states for a cut of the $4.35 billion set aside for education in the stimulus package. In order to qualify for a “Race to the Top” grant, states must meet some tough criteria including becoming charter school-friendly, tracking student performance and stepping in where schools are failing, and willingness to link student performance to teacher pay, among others. States that don’t comply with these requirements are not eligible to apply (e.g. Washington).

On the one hand, competition is one of the most practical, common sense, straight-forward approaches to education reform we have seen in a long time, especially from a left-leaning president. Rewarding states that promote educational innovation and advancement by getting the roadblocks out of the way for charter schools? A marvelous idea. Connecting student results with teacher performance and consequently with teacher compensation? Couldn’t agree more.

So why does this new program leave me so uneasy? Because it moves from the top down rather than from the bottom up. Regardless of who sits in the Oval Office, this is a dangerous direction for education reform to travel.

“Race to the Top” motivates states to compete with each other not for the approval of their citizens but for the approval of the federal government, specifically the executive branch. A new precedent is being set by which the president fires the opening shot and determines the race’s winner. This is not the way the United States was designed to operate.

Our fifty states function as unique “laboratories of democracy,” united through a federal government. Education is one arena where they exercise broad flexibility. In order for a state to thrive it must satisfy its citizens. If one state provides better educational opportunities than another, citizens have the freedom

ecent news reports suggest that North Korea launched an attack against the United States—

probably without the attacking forces ever leaving their desk chairs. An organized assault on government and other Web sites in the United States and South Korea began around July 4 on a level that experts suggest couldn’t be the work of a rogue individual—this was a concerted, organized, and sophisticated effort.

Coincidentally (or not, for the cynics in the audience), at the same time North Korea was test-firing missiles, imprisoning American journalists, and threatening

what lesson can we learn from the North Korean experience that applies to the struggle for liberty and freedom on the home front?

Here’s a simple one: You, too, can be a warrior in the struggle without ever leaving the comfort of your own home. Just like the old ads for correspondence courses or home businesses, the fight for liberty and freedom can be headquartered at your kitchen table, in your home office, or wherever you happen to place your laptop.

How, you might ask, does this happen? The answer, Pilgrim, is pretty simple: don’t just take it—take it to the enemy! Don’t be a passive bystander—be an active participant; be your own digital version of John Rambo —become an Internet cyber commando.

It’s simple. When you hear of something that isn’t right, then write. These days, the old-fashioned letter to the editor of the newspaper is an on-line proposition. Whether it’s to one of the few remaining on-paper papers or to the comments section of one of the growing number of electronic journals, you can have your say in 200 words.

For the more adventurous of heart, the blogosphere is fertile ground. Liberal and left-wing (the so-called “progressives”) blogs are as numerous as grains of sand on the beach. Find a few, then parachute (figuratively speaking, of course) into the comments thread to offer up some truth. You’ll find they’re so unused to it they won’t know what to do except call you names. Badges of honor, those.

No longer something that can be regarded as remote or for someone else to do, everyone with a phone line or cable TV is now enlisted into the service of liberty and freedom. With a DSL or broadband Internet connection,

to move. Understandably, this isn’t an option for many families. In that case, as voters, they can apply pressure at the state and local level until their schools improve; the power to shape reform is supposed to rest with the people of the affected state.

“Race to the Top” undermines that power. Instead of being compelled to meet the needs of citizens,

it forces states to comply with the federal government’s definition of successful education. That definition may be a good one, but the fact remains that it revolves around who determines effectiveness: the people served or the far-removed chief executive? Ask yourself, would you rather have the Obama administration running your local schools or your locally elected school board under the general guidance of your state legislature?

It’s true that charter schools, innovation, data-driven reform, rewarding good teachers, and holding failing schools accountable are all fantastic ideas that Washington should be chomping at the bit to adopt. Ironically, it’s the president’s allies on the left who have thrown up roadblocks at every turn. The education establishment’s dedication to the status quo is not just costing Washington the opportunity for a “Race to the Top” grant. It costs our students and graduates by imposing on them a substandard, outdated school system.

So while supporting the innovations themselves, we must remember who should be in the driver’s seat—and it isn’t the White House. Federal control has a flawless record of threatening innovation and representative government. We are the United States, states being the key component in the ingenious system the Founders called Federalism. The far-reaching implications of reversing who the states serve—the chief executive instead of the citizens—could produce a mindset so far removed from the beacon of American freedom that it will take generations to find our way back to true liberty.

CyBEr COmmANDOS ON ThE INTErNETRambo

by Scott St. Clair

R

Continued on page 12

Wby Diana Cieslak“Race to the Top” sets a dangerous precedent


verywhere I go people express concern about what President

Obama and Congress are doing on health care. Many worry about los-ing their existing health insurance and reducing the quality of care they presently receive.

But the federal bills are constantly changing, making it difficult to know which version to analyze. Overall, we know that the current proposals coming from the majority party will result in reducing the quality of your health care while increasing costs. Taxes will increase to pay for the costs. Rationing of doctors, treatments, tests and options will occur. While these may not be the proponents’ intended outcomes, it is the reality of cen-tralized, government-run operations.

Consider calling or writing your member of Congress and Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell and ask them to answer these questions:

1. Are you willing to transfer your own family and your staff’s families out of the existing Federal Employees Health Benefit Plan, with its choices of many private insurers, into whatever new plan you vote for?

2. The bills impose an individual mandate on me to buy

health insurance approved by the Federal govern-ment. What will happen to me if I don’t go along? Fines? Wage garnishment? Jail?

3. Will non-compliance penalties apply to illegal aliens the same as to American citizens and legal aliens?

4. The bills impose a mandate on most businesses to pay for employee health insurance containing “essential benefits” approved by the federal government. If the businesses don’t comply, they’ll be required to pay a fine. Do you have an estimate of how many small businesses will shrink their operations or go out of business as a result?

5. President Obama said that if I am happy with my coverage, I can keep it “no matter what.” But I can only do this until my employer changes or drops the existing coverage, or until I change employers, or try to buy individual insurance. How will the president keep his promise to me?

6. The bills contain a provision allowing health insur-ance plans bargained by labor unions to remain unchanged. But non-union workers are threatened with loss of their preferred coverage. Do you sup-port this specialized exemption for labor unions? If so, why?

7. President Obama has said he won’t support a health care reform bill that will add to our exploding deficit. But the Congressional Budget Office says these pro-posals will increase the federal deficit. Will you vote against any bill that fails President Obama’s deficit-neutral requirement?

8. Governors of both parties have strongly objected to current proposals, saying that mandated expansion of Medicaid will put an intolerable fiscal burden on struggling state treasuries and taxpayers. Will you vote against any bill containing costly unfunded mandates to the states?

9. Will you oppose any bill with provisions that would encourage health care providers, rather than patients, be the decision-makers when it comes to quality-of-life or end-of-life care for elderly citizens and people with disabilities?

10. As currently proposed, “qualified” health insurance plans must include all “essential benefits” as determined by federal officials. The majority continues to force inclusion of elective abortions as an “essential benefit” insurance companies must provide and tax-payers must subsidize. What will you do to protect insurance providers and citizens whose consciences require them not to provide or finance elective abor-tions?

11. Exploding medical malpractice claims are driving doctor and hospital malpractice insurance premiums ever upward. This increases scarcity of doctors in cer-tain high-risk fields, like obstetrics, which decreases access and increases cost. Why are there no provi-sions in any of the bills to rectify this problem?

12. As it stands today, the favored bill contains a “public option”—a government-run insurance company “to keep the private insurers honest.” Will this govern-ment-run company pay taxes, pay for its own rev-enue collection and marketing costs, and pay market interest rates on its debt? Or will it enjoy govern-ment backing that will enable it to undersell its pri-vate competitors, swallow up their customers, and become a new “Medicare for Everybody”?

13. Speaking of Medicare, the system is $36 trillion out of actuarial balance and will run out of hospital-ization benefit funds by 2017. How will the govern-ment-run “public option” insurance company avoid turning into another Medicare basket case? And how will our senior citizens on Medicare continue to get medical services?

(These questions were shaped around the excellent work done by John McClaughry of the Ethan Allen Institute.)

If this isn’t the right reform for health care, what is? Any thinking person will acknowledge we have a real crisis in our health care system, but a government take-over is the wrong solution. Merely opposing the Demo-crats’ plans without offering solutions will cause us to lose the battle.

We will analyze the alternatives offered, hoping to find an excellent proposal. For sure it will have these elements:

It will be patient-centered. The key decisionmakers will be patients and their health care practitioners. It will

use market forces and transparency to reduce waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement in the system. Litiga-tion reform will be addressed so doctors can quit prac-ticing very expensive defensive medicine. It will reward wellness and good health practices.

In the weeks to come, we will analyze and publish some of the best alternatives to accomplish true health care reform. In the meantime, the wrong-headed pro-posals currently before Congress must be stopped.

E

ask them to answer these questions:

hEALTh CArE: What You and I Can doby Bob Williams

8 LIVING LIBERTY

Sby Irene EndicottYou can make a difference

ometimes adults feel helpless about making a difference. If we

are brave enough to take a chance on young people, however, we can help set them on a path to greatness. After all, someone took the time to influ-ence a young Margaret Thatcher. Someone instilled values and principles in a boy named Bob Williams, and someone inspired a young Lynn Harsh—changing their lives forever.

Efrain Colon, II: “I am the youngest of three children. Two people have inspired me. My oldest sister, Billenna is the first in our family to graduate from college. Grow-

ing up, she was like a savior to me. We were raised by a single mother who is the other person in my life who inspired me. She pushed me. She wanted us to finish high school. College was pushed even harder.

My mother, Gearline, is of Native American

descent; my father was born in Puerto Rico. He moved back to Puerto Rico when I was seven but always kept in touch. I was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina but have visited Puerto Rico several times. My father is also a big influence in my life.

Growing up was sometimes hard. We worked all the time. I was seven, helping to renovate old mobile homes, clean and paint them and place new carpeting. I did what I had to do and learned a strong work ethic. My sister, Billenna inspired me without saying anything. She led by example. Just being herself made her such a great human being—a great sister. We love her uncondition-ally and have always looked up to her.

We had a lot of hard times growing up in a single-parent home. Now that I am older, I can look back and see how difficult it must have been for my mother to raise us on her own. At the time, I didn’t understand and had some resentment, but now I see what she had to do to put her children through a private Christian academy and a four-year university. That took a lot of sacrifice by her. I say to her, ‘Thank you, Momma!’ ”

Efrain recently graduated from the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. His future plans include music, communications, writing and performing.

Ben Hayter: “My parents, Mark and Sonja Hayter have inspired me more than anyone else to achieve as much as I could. They didn’t have the same opportuni-

ties that have been given to me, and have told me what they learned and how blessed I am to be able to go beyond their considerable achieve-ments. I am working hard to capitalize on the opportuni-ties they have given me out of their own sacrifices. I am

sure that it will mean even more to me in the future than I can realize right now.

Other people have influenced me as well: my high school principal, Richard Hannula, and my high school English teacher, Douglas Bond. They were willing to put their life energy into teaching principles that go far beyond the time in which we are living—beyond this political time. They taught me how to apply the truths I was learning to every area of life. It keeps me going to know that those things will still be true in the future. I hope to pass them on to my children one day.

Still, without my parents’ direction and guidance I would be a different person today. They sacrificed so much for me and I am overwhelmed with thankfulness. I am deeply grateful.”

After graduation from Hillsdale College, Ben plans to go to law school and open his own practice or work for a law firm that stands for preserving natural rights and freedom. He may also teach.

Kerry Hemingway: “The person who has inspired me greatly and set me on this path is my father, Frank Hemingway. He always told me that he was born a con-servative and that he thinks I was, too. He consistently instilled in me free market capitalistic values and said they are worth keeping because that’s how we will remain free. He talks to me about things from a conser-vative perspective, countering the always liberal agenda I get on the news and in school. He makes it clear to me

that we should respect our military; and he has taught me the importance of personal responsibility, whether it is a simple thing like what we eat or what we spend our

money on. My dad is … well, my dad

is frugal. He is very careful with money. He has a hard time getting a good car. He will go from place to place and ends up buying from an independent seller. My dad has taught me so much about

individual responsibility, fairness and freedom. He is the one who has set me on the path I travel today.”

Upon graduation from Washington State Uni-versity, Kerry hopes to enter the field of video editing or website design and editing.

Bryan Leonard: “My dad, Ken Leonard, has inspired me. He teaches economics. Because of him, I ended up at Hillsdale College with a goal of teaching economics. I was also inspired by Dr. Wolfram at Hillsdale because he has such energy for explaining it and is very straight-forward with common sense that kind of wakes people up to the truth.

Honestly, I think it all goes back to Friedrich Hayek. Through Road to Serf-dom and other things he has written, Hayek has been able to reach so many people and turn the tide of public opinion. His work is timeless.

The influence of all of these great people has helped me decide to go to graduate school and actually teach economics as opposed to going into business or something like that. The influence of my dad has completely focused me on my career choice and I am so grateful to him.”

Following graduate school, Bryan hopes to attend Montana State University to study envi-ronmental economics or George Mason Uni-versity to study Austrian Economics.

Anna Stinogel: “My parents gave me the ability to think from a very young age; to evaluate public opinion and compare these things to what I think of as important and to what I know to be true. My dad had me listening to conservative talk radio and discussing issues from age 12.

Just that start, plus a commitment to doing something about what you believe because you know it’s right, inspired me. I think that really defines me right now and drives me going forward. There are things I am really passionate about; things that get me all riled up and make me want to shout and spread the word—make a difference. That drive wouldn’t be there if it weren’t for my parents, Rick and Amy Stinogel. They taught me the principles upon which to live my life and showed me how to live it with passion. That is a very powerful thing and I just hope I can keep that going.

I asked our outstanding summer

interns this question: “Has someone

inspired you to be who you are today

and how have their influences affected

your future goals?” As you read their

responses, note the adults who most

influenced them in life-changing ways.

Good—even great ideas, values and

principles—when instilled in young

people by a consistent, caring adult,

can make a profound difference in their

lives and in the future of our nation.

They are our future.

Is there a young person in your life

who needs you to come alongside?

Whether you are a parent, friend or a

teacher, you can make a difference in

one life that could impact a generation

and the world.


Having his example helps me to remember not to take things on face value, not to listen just to what other peo-ple say, but to come up with my own ideas and answers and communicate them gra-ciously. We can’t beat some-one else down, speaking to them in a harsh way. We must actually speak the truth clearly and with gracious-

ness so people can hear what we are saying. I really respect my dad for that.”

After graduation in two years, Liv hopes to work for a public policy organization like EFF.

and now with this experience at EFF, I am thinking more about that. I have learned so much from Dr. Arnn at Hillsdale. He is a brilliant man. And now from Lynn Harsh. Very inspiring. The future will be exciting!”

After graduation, Anna wants to continue working in the political arena, organizing grassroots efforts, open her own preschool and a handful of other businesses.

Olivia Wolcott: “For me, it would definitely be both of my parents who inspired me in a lot of ways. My dad, John Wolcott, feels strongly that we need young people in America who are thinking about what’s going on and can communicate clearly. He was my debate coach in high school and teaches debate now, working with kids, training them how to think and to be able to speak per-suasively about issues.

Yes, I wanT To InvEST In ThE EvERgREEn FREEdoM FoundaTIon.

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I greatly admire Lynn Harsh. She is one of the most amazing women I have ever met. Just this summer, meeting her, learning from her … there are so many things about her that I aspire to. Her bravery is probably

the one thing that I want to work on most: the cour-age to stand up and talk to strangers, to say what you believe. I want to be able to inspire others to action like that.

I am an entrepreneur, through and through. I like coming up with ideas.

I want to start a business. This summer, the political arena is back among my options. In high school, I got really, really irritated with what was going on in politics and needed some place to put that energy. At Hillsdale,

10 LIVING LIBERTY

Mby Ben Hayter

Helping America Vote? Questions about Washington’s compliance with federal election law

ost Americans remember the November 7, 2000 presidential election. They remember

the polls, the endless stream of news reports, and the five-week delay caused by re-counts and court fights. Fewer Americans know how the problems exposed by the 2000 election influenced the conduct of future elec-tions all across the country.

Just two years after the contest between George W. Bush and Al Gore, Congress passed an election reform law called the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA). Designed to improve the accuracy and efficiency of elections, HAVA established new and mandatory stan-dards for election processes. It also supplied federal funding to help state and local governments meet these new standards.

One of HAVA’s targets is the way states gather and maintain lists of voter registrations. HAVA requires that states create a “single, uniform, official, central-ized, interactive, computerized statewide voter regis-tration list” that is maintained and administered at the state level.

When Congress passed HAVA in October of 2002, Washington State did not have a database that met these requirements. The law put the responsibility on Sec-retary of State Sam Reed to develop a new statewide voter registration database. Designing and implement-ing a HAVA-compliant system would not be easy. Yet it offered a great advance in the accuracy and reliability of Washington elections.

Unfortunately, Washington failed to implement HAVA in time for the 2004 election. That debacle only proved the importance of keeping duplicates and other illegitimate registrations off the voter rolls.

When the statewide voter registration database was completed, it allowed officials to find and remove thou-sands of illegitimate registrations. Over 40,000 dupli-cates were cleaned from the rolls, along with 4,500 ille-gally registered felons. Yet it eventually became clear that despite these early successes, the new database was not living up to expectations.

Bob Edelman, a volunteer researcher for EFF, discov-ered newly created duplicate registrations, underage voters, and records with impossible birthdates or other anomalies. Some of the problems arose from the struc-tural design of the database itself. In 2003, the state decided the easiest way to comply with HAVA would be to build a “bottom-up” database. This would leave

all 39 counties with their own databases and add the state system on top. Each county keeps a separate voter roll and is supposed to synchronize it with the state-wide list.

Instead of the one list anticipated by HAVA, Wash-ington has ended up with 40 lists designed by differ-ent vendors at different times using different hardware and software. These 40 systems need to communicate and the state list, to satisfy HAVA, must dominate. It doesn’t always work out as planned.

Edelman has analyzed records from the 2008 election, finding numerous troubling failures. He discovered that the state database was 217,700 votes short when com-pared with the total number of votes cast statewide. The Secretary of State’s office was forced to admit that they did not have an accurate record of who voted in 2008 (county records were better).

Looking at individual counties, some apparently dis-regarded the state list and continued to rely on their local system in violation of HAVA. In King County, over 500 voters were on the local list but not the state list, and the reverse was true for more than 180 other voters. In the four largest counties, Edelman has found 1,176 instances of one voter being sent two ballots because he or she was registered in two counties.

Flawed processes, uncaught or uncorrected mistakes, and a lax attitude about the importance of accurate voter registration records all threaten to undermine confidence in elections. When confidence wanes, so does voter participation. To improve election integrity and voter confidence, HAVA requires that the state have one single authoritative and accurate voter registration database. Washington still has work to do to satisfy this requirement of federal law.

oes the governor’s executive privilege exempt her from the

state’s Public Records Act? Looks like we’ll find out.

Climate change was a hot topic dur-ing the 2009 legislative session. Gov. Gregoire had requested legislation that ultimately died in the Senate. Not to be stopped, the governor issued Executive Order 09-05 to address climate change. This document orders state agencies to begin formulating solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the number of vehicle miles traveled.

Curious to see how the executive order was developed, the Evergreen Freedom Foundation requested docu-ments related to its drafting and implementation. So far, the governor’s office has given us hundreds of pages, but they have refused to release 48 documents. The denial cites several reasons, including “executive privilege” and “deliberative process.”

There are several problems with this denial. First, there is no “executive privilege” exemption in the Public Records Act, and a records request may only be denied by citing a specific statutory exemption. Addition-ally, the “deliberative process” exemption is intended to shield the back-and-forth of policy development. Once the executive order was published, “deliberative process” no longer applied. (Living Liberty readers will recall that Gov. Gregoire’s budget team claimed the phantom “executive privilege” exemption several months ago after we asked for its list of 87 ideas for fix-ing the budget crisis. The State eventually backed down and we obtained that list.)

For these reasons, we wrote to the governor’s office asking for a reconsideration of the denial. As we said in the letter:

“[W]e believe the state’s public policy in favor of openness should dictate disclosure of the docu-ments we requested. The policies adopted in Gov. Gregoire’s executive order will result in signifi-cant cost to state agencies, local governments, and private businesses. As the governor is well

aware, the question of how to address climate change is the subject of fierce debate in the Wash-ington Legislature and in Congress. Legislation requested by the governor in the 2009 legislative session received consideration, but ultimately did not pass.”

Now the governor asks the people of Washington to accept her executive actions related to climate change without giving us the benefit of fully understanding how her policies were developed and implemented. The gov-ernor should not act under the cloak of secrecy where the legislature openly declined to act.

A week later we received those records. The gover-nor’s general counsel wrote to explain that he disagreed with our legal analysis, and that the governor was not

waiving the right to assert executive privilege or delib-erative process in response to future requests. Never-theless, they supplied EFF with the previously-withheld records.

While we’re pleased to have obtained the records we requested, the governor’s practice here is very trou-bling. This is the second time in 2009 that EFF has been denied a records request on the basis of executive privi-lege, only to have the records supplied when we threat-

ened legal action. The governor’s office no doubt asserts executive privilege in response to other requests. How many citizens have been turned away with this phantom exemption?

Rather than asserting this non-existent privilege, Gov. Gregoire should review the intent of the Public Records Law:

“The people of this state do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies that serve them. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may maintain control over the instruments that they have created.”

Dby Michael ReitzGov. Gregoire denies EFF records request, claiming “executive privilege”

“The Secretary of State’s office was forced to admit that they

did not have an accurate record of who voted in 2008.”


diary

Just have a little faith

of a Freedom Loving Mom…b y J u d y p a r k i n s

I n September 1998 the first of the Harry Potter books was published in America—and for the last decade,

the Barnhart family, muggles all of us, have loved every adventure, challenge, and battle Harry and his friends have survived! What I remember most about that fall, however, were the conversations I had with other par-ents who chose not to let their children read Harry Pot-ter. To this day I love and respect them. I also strongly disagree.

I want children who can think for themselves. Young adults who can read or hear something—take what is good and leave the rest. It was my goal for my children to have no fear or emotion connected with people or ideas that were different than ours. That is the heart of critical thinking. To raise children equipped to inherit our Republic critical thinking is, well, critical.

Here’s a simple definition: “Critical thinking is pur-poseful and reflective judgment about what to believe or what to do in response to observations, experience, verbal or written expressions or arguments. One author writes, “A student who thinks critically can ask appro-priate questions, gather relevant information, efficiently and creatively sort through this information, reason log-ically from this information, and come to reliable and trustworthy conclusions about the world that enable him to live and act successfully in it.” This process is power-ful and essential whether a person believes in absolutes or not. It can apply to reading Harry Potter or to any number of current political debates.

Thinking critically allows people to change their per-spective and their position on an issue as they gain more knowledge and experience. With that said, I am delighted to share the following email (unedited and uncensored) I received from my daughter at Willamette Law School. (EFF readers first met Lauren in the February 2009 Liv-ing Liberty, where she articulated her reasons for voting for Obama.): “Hey Mom, I’ve seriously been turning back more conserva-tive. I think what I’m seeing now, that I hadn’t quite seen before, is that people don’t get it. When I wrote my paper on faith-based initiatives last year, I discussed Olasky and his assertion that now the nation is perpetuating a welfare state. Olasky contends that those

born into a family receiving wel-fare will accept receiving welfare without thinking twice. I thought this argument made sense, but on the other hand, there are people with genuine need and that can be a combination of the individ-ual and their socio-economic sit-uation. What about them?

However, my new neighbor comes from a really wealthy family and they pay for her tuition and all that stuff but they told her she has to pay for her own rent and food—

as like a life lesson or something. So what does she do? SHE GETS FOOD STAMPS!!! She still buys beer, she goes out to bars, and now she can afford her expensive ten dollar vegetarian bean dip.

I’m not going to lie; this has seriously affected my relationship with her. I wish I was kidding. But every time she comes out with a beer or anything I’m just like thinking to myself ‘Wow, I hope you’re enjoying that because we all bought that for you... bitch!’

What’s killing me now is that people think they are entitled to have the government take care of them. Like Cheryl isn’t thinking, ‘Oh wow, I’m pretty broke these days, maybe I’ll have to cut out some things.’ She thinks,

‘Oh man, I can’t afford to buy every-thing I want. I’ll take some government money.’

I mean, snap dog, that just pisses me off because they are exploiting a system in place designed to keep people from starving—not help them afford Papa Murphy’s pizza! (Which, by the way, does accept food stamps.)

This still doesn’t bring me to a solu-tion. I just think it sucks that we don’t have a better way of determining who actually needs help and who is abusing it. Ugh.”

A classic example of why I have faith in my children’s ability to reason things through as they continue to experience life. And that’s why I have faith that our

Republic and it’s people will continue to endure and prosper.

he Washington Constitution requires that the State pay “just compensation” when acquiring private

property for public use through the power of eminent domain. But can a person recover a payment when the State’s actions later damage his or her property?

Luc Martini owns a piece of prop-erty near State Route 18 in King County. In 2002, the Washington State Department of Transporta-tion (DOT) started an eminent domain action to acquire a por-tion of Martini’s property. After a 2004 trial, Martini received a pay-ment from the State for the por-tion of his property that had been condemned. In July 2006, Martini filed a new lawsuit alleging that DOT had further damaged his remaining property and had taken additional land. He sought additional compensation for the new taking.

The trial court ruled against Martini. The Court of Appeals upheld the ruling, stating that Martini “knew or should have known” during the 2004 trial that the

subsequent damage could have occurred. The Court of Appeals dismissed his case, ruling that his claims were precluded. Martini then filed a petition for review with the Supreme Court of Washington.

The Evergreen Freedom Foundation filed an amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) brief urging the Supreme Court to review the Court of Appeals deci-sion.

In our brief we wrote: “When a governmental action

results in a taking or damaging of private property without formal proceeding, property owners are entitled to pursue a claim of inverse condemnation. Numerous deci-sions by this Court have allowed a property owner to bring a claim for new damage done to his or her

property after a prior eminent domain action has concluded. The Court of Appeals ignores decisions of this Court and instead applies a rule that makes it exceedingly difficult for a property owner to recover for damages.

Tby Michael ReitzEFF urges Washington State Supreme Court to take property rights case

“ To raise children equipped to inherit our Republic critical thinking is, well, critical.”

Additionally, this case presents significant issues of law under the Washington Constitu-tion and could have negative public policy rami-fications. The Washington Constitution identi-fies the right to private property as one of the key liberties to be protected from government invasion, but the Court of Appeals erodes this protection by shifting the burden to the prop-erty owner, who would be required to anticipate every potential damage that could result from a taking. Government takings should be com-pensated based on actual damage, rather than the highly-speculative standard applied by the Court of Appeals.”

We believe the Court of Appeals created a dangerous new rule by rejecting Mr. Martini’s claim. Under this rule, property owners faced with an eminent domain taking would be forced to predict the damage that could result to the remainder of their property. Property own-ers shouldn’t be required to act as fortune-tellers to be compensated when the State damages their property.

The case is Luc Martini v. Washington State Depart-ment of Transportation, No. 83304-4.

12 LIVING LIBERTY

you have the ability to jump into the fray and make a difference. Instead of hunkering down behind figurative walls, you can go on the offense. In the battle for hearts and minds, start taking back territory instead of being willing to accept losses.

To paraphrase Paul Revere, “To computers, to computers—the liberals are upon us!”

And do it every day because there are opportunities every day and the battle continues every day. Preparation is, of course, essential. We must always be ready to offer a defense of what we know to be right and true as well as attack what is wrong and false. As Edmund Burke said, “All that’s necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing.” If the Right Honorable Mr. Burke were alive today, no doubt he would willingly include women in his call to arms.

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The battle comes closer to us every day. Everyone’s participation is necessary. Before the airplane, the distance of ocean meant that a conflict in Europe or Asia could be ignored as too far off to be our business. Pearl Harbor destroyed that thinking. And 9/11 painfully reminded us that the battle can even be brought to our homeland.

The cyber-battle is even closer and more immediate. If you have a computer or a cellular telephone, the weapons are in your hand to blog or tweet or e-mail or text-message. Seize the opportunity to wage the war of ideas. Every citizen can.

And speaking of CAN—the Evergreen Freedom Foundation’s Citizen Action Network—you have the opportunity to enlist and be a warrior for liberty and freedom on an even higher, more personal level by joining with other patriots to take direct action to get out the word, demonstrate, and make a difference in your community, Washington state, and the nation. You might be the one whose effort tips the scales to begin the long, slow process of restoring our government to the people. To join CAN, write to [email protected].

The fight belongs to every one of us, not just a select few or those who are experienced at it. In fact, often the most effective fighters are the least polished and articulate because they’re real, unvarnished, and honest. But whether you’re a veteran or a new recruit, the battle is joined—time for everyone to do their part so that the day may be ours. In Shakespeare’s words, “All things are ready if our minds be so.”

ceases to be a voluntary way, as Samuel Gompers envi-sioned, for workers to come together to negotiate over pay and workplace concerns. Instead, bargaining is about how money and political power place corporate union interests over those of the individual.

Worker freedom today and tomorrow must be about empowering the individual. The government should not promote the principle of forced “solidarity” over indi-vidual choice. Even though Labor Day was started by unions, it’s time for us, the working men and women, to reclaim the true meaning of Labor Day. The labor movement’s version of “worker freedom” has empha-sized forced worker equality at the expense of indi-vidual liberty. Truly celebrating the American worker means honoring the dedication, loyalty, ambition, and ingenuity of those who have made our nation what it is today.

We at EFF will continue our fight to protect their liberty and freedom of choice in the workplace. Our nation’s founders created a system that was meant to reward hard work and ambition. The workers of Amer-ica—the very backbone of our nation—don’t deserve a glass ceiling imposed by unions. They deserve to live in a country free from government and union coercion, which serves only to hamper the will and strength of our nation’s greatest asset: its people. In order for our states and country to continue to prosper and progress, our individual liberties must be preserved.

Digital Rambo Continued from page 6 . . .Labor Day Continued from page 4 . . .

“Seize the opportunity to wage the war of ideas.

Every citizen can.”

living liberty september 2009

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