Counterweight Featured by IWF

Counterweight senior editor, Dominic Rupprecht, and newsbrief editor, Lee Markison, have each had articles featured by the Independent Women's Forum.

You can read Dominic's article here and Lee's articles here and here.

The Competition

Two lefty papers came out last week, and let me say, they were positively hilarious--even if they didn't mean to be.

All That's Left, a publication of the Bucknell College Democrats/Liberal Alliance, publishes once per semester. Their 16 pages of brilliance came out after a semester's worth of work, and let me tell you, it sure did pay off. After being asked by a number of students if the paper was a joke orchestrated by the BUCC, I decided to take a look at it.

Each article has at least four horrific spelling errors/gramatical errors, not to mention the piles of nonsensical rantings. One of my favorites: (appearing in the "from the editor" article): "Insisde find information on globabl poverty." Now, don't get me wrong, "globabl" poverty is an important issue, but when you have an entire semester to write your paper, one would think that you could maybe run a spell check on the articles. The scores of errors wouldn't be so bad, if not for a "Rant by Seth" who wrote about how "stupid" those on campus were, and attacked conservatives and fraternity men as "slugs" (not to mention a number of other articles decrying campus ignorance).

When called out Seth Pajka responded by curling up in a fetal position and saying, "Have you seen All That’s Left? Do you see how many typos there are in there? How many times does it come out a year? ­ Basically All That’s Left is nowhere in the league of The Counterweight, and it shouldn’t be assumed that it is." I moreover, was curious to see who this Seth character was, so did a quick "facebook" search of him. Apparently, on top of lacking in basic reasoning ability he also likes to joke about being a member of the "Schutzstaffel Totenkopfverbaende fuer Mexico." (For those of you who don't know, the "Schutzstaffel Totenkopfverbaende" were the SS units that ran Hitler's concentration camps during the Holocaust. I guess when liberals draw swastikas on the doors of CW writers, they're trying to compliment us.)

The Catalyst, a publication of Bucknell's Students for Fair Trade and Labor, was equally loaded with illogical and pathetically dumb arguments--there really are too many to mention. While they were able to use a spell check, they apparently were not able to use a "logic check."

Looking at their article on Walter Williams's fantastic speech at Bucknell a few weeks ago, one can see the level of discourse in which they engage. The following were just a few errors/lies/utter stupidity in the article:

1. They say, Williams refers to himself as "the most ardent free market economist in the world." He does not. The Economics Department at George Mason--which is made up of two Nobel Prize winners--does.

2. They said Williams said that the federal government should be building infrastructure. In fact, he quoted Madison at length in the speech saying that the federal government does not have the right to build things like roads and infrastructure.

3. They said Williams said that the maximization of freedom should be the only goal of government. This assumes that government grants us freedom. Freedom is a gift given by God, which cannot be taken away. We fought a war over this 230 years ago. The purpose of government is to protect those freedoms, property rights, and other goods Williams mentions. It's a subtle distinction but an important one. For example, where freedom was maximized, someone could attack you viciously, and say, "It's OK I'm free." Williams does not support this.

4. They say we should "charge our government with the additional task of ensuring that Americans are housed, fed, and are provided the opportunity to contribute to society, regardless of the circumstances of their birth." Does this mean we ought to force Bill Gates into government housing?

5. They say the poor will "Never be able to exercise the freedoms they are legally granted." Here again they imply that government grants us freedom. Government cannot grant freedom. If government could grant it , it could take it away. However, even assuming that this is correct the notion that the poor cannot exercise their freedom is dumb, painfully. The poor have the right to free speech, free association, free exercise of religion, freedom of movement, freedom of person, etc. They have every freedom that everyone else in America has.

6. They said the lecture was entitled "Pushing Back the Frontiers of Ignorance." The lecture was titled "The Proper Role of Government in a Free Society," these were the first words out of Williams's mouth. Perhaps had they been listening to the speech you would have picked up on this.

7. He did not say that 2/3 to 3/4 is spent on social programming. He said 3/5 to 2/3 was spent on things for which there was no constitutional justification. Tho refute this they say that we spend $500 billion on the military. According to the New York Times only 19% of the 2005 federal budget is spent on the military (we have a 2.2 trillion dollar budget). Social Security makes up 21%, Medicare makes up another 14%, and Medicaid makes up 7%. None of these expenditures have a constitutional mandate. Then we have non military discretionary spending, most of which has no constitutional basis, making up 18%, and "other" making up 12%. That means according to the Times, 42% of the budget definitely doesn't have any constitutional justification, with another 30% likely having no justification. This moreover, is assuming that none of the military spending is waste, fraud, or pork. $500 billion may sound like a lot, but we have a 2.2 trillion dollar budget. Lesson: do research.

8. They said a "tax break" is a "benevolent expenditure." In fact, it is the government saying "I won't take your money."

9. They said Williams said taxes were the only source of government income. In fact, he said they were the main source of income. This is true.

10. They attacked Williams/capitalism for supporting subsidies of big business. In fact, Williams viciously attacked subsidies. He called it government sponsored theft.

11. They ask: "How often, if ever, are the interests of the powerful the same as the interests of the powerless? In the event thattheir interests clash, who is more likely to be able to protect their interests: the powerful or the powerless?" There are many things wrong with this. First, the economic interests of the wealthy and the poor are frequently the same. The wealthy like to buy "things." When was the last time Bill Gates built his own yacht? When was the last time Warren Buffet built his own limo? When they purchase things, they are freely giving money to others. Moreover, the rich--I suspect--enjoy getting richer. Taking Bill Gates as an example, he likes to sell more PCs. To do this, he needs people to build the PCs. Bill is not building them. The wealthy are not building them either. He needs people to ship them, package them, assemble them, assemble parts, etc. Moreover, Bill Gates' products are providing massive benefits to the rest of the population. Nearly everyone in America owns at least one computer. This has made life better for massive numbers of people. The same holds true for things like automobiles--which 70% of those we classify as "poor" own. Clearly the poor and the wealthy have economic interests that align. The second half of the statement, however, is even more disturbing. If we had a government like Dr. Williams and James Madison hoped we would, the interests would not clash. However, under our government, we take money from some and give it to others whether through welfare (which Williams attacked) or subsidies (which Williams attacked). Increasing the government intrusion does not increase stability. It increases government plunder, and encourages further plunder. When economic exchanges are voluntary interests are by definition aligned.

12. They say: "Taxation is at it's core voluntary," which is perhaps the dumbest thing I have ever read. If I refused to pay my taxes because I wanted to give money to a charity I would be thrown in jail. If I tried to stop the feds from dragging me off to prison I would be shot. This is not volunteerism. It is coercion and theft.

13, They attack Williams for using the term "rape" to describe taxation. Saying he "crossed a line." According to Meriam Webster it is rape ("to seize and take away by force"). Williams is not crossing the line, he is speaking proper English.

14. They suggest that Williams favored the abolition of the government in the final paragraph. Williams said clearly that he is not an anarchist and recognizes that government has a "proper role."


Here's two cheers to the campus lefties for proving once again that if you want to ignore facts and base ideas on what "feels" correct rather than what "is" correct, there will always be a place for you among their crowd.

Williams and the Economics Department

The BUCC recently hosted a speech by Dr. Walter Williams--who George Mason University has described as "perhaps the most ardent free market economist in the world"--at Bucknell as our Third Annual Conservative Alumni Lecture.

The speech was a fantastic success, as students packed the lecture hall to hear Dr. Williams talk about "The Proper Role of Government in a Free Society," much to the apparent chagrin of our Economics Department. The Department's role in having this world renowned economist was:

1. 2/4/06--BUCC asks Department Chair Peter Karl Kresl if the Economics Department would cosponsor Dr. Williams's talk.

2. 2/18/06--After 2 weeks with no answer, BUCC asks Kresl again if Economics would support the talk.

3. 2/19/06--Economics denies funding for the event, and requests that the economics faculty be given a
chance to meet with Williams (the BUCC generously agrees to give special treatment to the department).

4. 2/19/06--BUCC asks Kresl if the economics deparment would cosponsor the event "in name only" (that is, not giving any money, just putting their name on the talk). On 2/20, Kresl replied, "That would, of course, give the impression to the rest of the campus that we were actually supporting his visit financially." Apparently, the world would fall apart if anyone thought that the department was acting like any other economics department worth its salt would.

5. BUCC raises the necessary funds (80% from off campus sources), and confirms Williams's visit, which is listed on the University calendar beginning in mid-March.

6. On April 7, BUCC sends the Economics Department an official invitation to the Williams/Econ faculty reception.

7. On April 11, Kresl sent BUCC president, Dominic Rupprecht, an email which stated that they had scheduled an event featuring Todd Buchholz, which, “has just been arranged, yesterday, for the 20.”

Let that sink in a minute. Dr. Walter Williams, whom they had refused to fund, cosponsor in name only, and with whom they demanded a meeting, was speaking on April 20.

One could argue that while they knew he was coming, they did not know the specific date of his visit. However, this is belied by the fact that the department was invited to meet with him on April 7, and according to them, they did not schedule their speaker’s visit until April 10.

Moreover, they could have looked at the campus calendar, which featured “Conservatives Club – Speaker Walter Williams.” They could have contacted the club to see if there was a date set for Williams, of whose visit they were aware since February 3.