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Saturday, February 6,2010 -Thomasville Times -A5
OPINION
Thomasville Times
MICHAEL B. STARN
Publisher
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LYNN WAGNER
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LISA M. WALL
Editor
editor@tvilletimes.com
•
ZACH KEPLEY
Sports Editor
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Another undead
conservative idea
VIEWPOINT
MONA CHAREN
Syndicated Columnist
Barack Obama assumed the
presidency determined not
just to promote certain poli
cies but to tidy up our minds
as well. Some things we’d
been saving, like conservative
ideas on national defense and
such, would have to go. Those
were “the failed policies of
the past,” and he would not
tolerate people clinging to
them. Obama enthusiast and
New York Times editor Sam
Tanenhaus thought he was
writing an epitaph when he
published “The Death of Con
servatism” six months ago.
But we have not cooperated.
More to the point, the facts
have not cooperated. That
$787 billion stimulus that was
guaranteed to keep unemploy
ment at 8 percent or less is
now regarded by 75 percent
of Americans as a corrupt
flop. Seventy-one percent say
underwear bomber Abdul-
mutaUab should have been
handed over to the military.
And 58 percent say he should
have been waterboarded.
Now we learn, from a study
in the Archives of Pediatrics
and Adolescent Medicine
end ital that another prema
turely buried conservative
idea, abstinence education,
works very well indeed.
The Obama administration
had disdained and defunded
abstinence education in favor
of “evidence-based” programs
to prevent teen pregnancy.
(Note the assumption that
liberal ideas are founded on
evidence whereas conserva
tive ideas spring from preju
dice, ignorance or downright
orneriness.) No one study
settles things, but this one,
conducted by an African-
American professor from the
University of Pennsylvania,
will be hard to ignore.
Between 2001 and 2004,
John B. Jemmott III and his
colleagues studied 662 Af
rican-American sixth- and
seventh-graders (average age
12). The kids were randomly
assigned to one of four pro
grams. The first emphasized
abstinence and included
role-playing methods to avoid
sex. The second combined
an abstinence message with
information about condoms.
The third focused solely on
condom use, and the fourth
(the control group) was taught
general health information.
Over the course of the next
two years, about half of the
kids who received the condom
instruction and half of the
control group were having
sex. Forty-two percent of
those who got the combination
class were sexually active, but
only 33 percent of the absti
nence-only group were having
sex. Additionally, and this
confounds one of the myths
of the condom pushers, the
study found ho difference in
condom use among the four
groups of students who did
engage in sex. “I think we’ve
written off abstinence-only
education without looking
closely at the nature of the
evidence,” Jemmott told the
Washington Post. “Our study
shows this Could be one ap
proach that could be used.”
Elayne Bennett, founder of
the Best Friends program,
is delighted that the Jem
mott research reinforces
her experience with mostly
African-American adoles
cent girls. Offering a mixed
program of mentoring, dance,
music, and role-playing. Best
Friends and its new spinoff.
Best Men for boys, has had
two decades of success in
helping kids abstain from sex,
drugs, and alcohol until they
graduate from high school.
She has found that the kids
desperately want someone to
teU them it’s OK to postpone
sex. It’s a commentary on
our times but there it is - we
need special programs to give
kids permission to say no.
“The opponents,” Bennett
notes, “have popularized three
words, Abstinence doesn’t
work.’” But her program and
others like it have excellent
track records. Every previous
study showing the effective
ness of abstinence programs
has been picked apart for one
trivial flaw or another, hut the
new research seems airtight.
People usually form their
opinions first and look only
for evidence that supports
their prejudices. That’s
another reason the Jemmott
research deserves respect.
He didn’t conduct his re
search to support abstinence
education. He’s simply
reporting on what works.
It’s always been an open
question whether supporters
of so-caUed “comprehensive
sex ed,” with its heavy empha
sis on “safe sex” and condoms,
actually believe in abstinence
at all. They always argued
that “no matter what we say,
the kids are going to have
sex anyway so they might as
well be safe.” But they never
adopted that logic with, say,
cigarettes. They didn’t lobby
for mandatory filters on the
grounds that the kids were
going to smoke wflly-niily.
WeU, this wiU be a test.
The Obama administration
has vowed to fund “evidence
based” programs. WUl they
reverse their decision to com
pletely defund abstinence ed?
To find out more about Mona
Charen and read features by
other Creators Syndicate colum
nists and cartoonists, visit the
Creators Syndicate web page at
WWW. creators, com.
The GOP^s dubious populism
VIEWPOINT
JOECONASON
Syndicated Columnist
The most revealing mo
ments in President Obama’s
State of the Union Address
were not in his remarks,
but the reaction to them
by those listening on the
Republican side of the aisle.
When he proposed to recov
er a “financial responsibility
fee” — in plainer English, a
bank tax — from the largest
and most heavily leveraged
WaU Street firms, the Repub
licans sat on their hands and
scowled, while Democrats
cheered and whistled. And
when he warned that the
Supreme Court’s latest deci
sion would open the political
process to mega-corporations
and their foreign owners,
the Republicans were so
enraged that they have since
accused him of lying.
On both counts, the poli
tics and policy are subject
to reasonable disagreement
— but the facts support the
president. More importantly,
however, is what both issues
say about the continuing
character of the Republican
Party at a time when its
leaders are counting on the
“conservative populism” of
the “tea party” movement to
revive the party’s fortunes.
Consider the possibility of
unchecked foreign influ
ence in American political
campaigns, a change that
would seem certain to ir
ritate the self-styled super
patriots of the Republican
right. Although Supreme
Court Justice Samuel Alito
appeared to mutter that the
president was “not right”
during the speech — and was
then echoed by every right-
wing commentator, from The
Washington Times to The
Wall Street Journal — non
partisan observers believe
that Obama is indeed correct.
“With the corporate cam
paign expenditure ban now
being declared unconstitu
tional, domestic corpora
tions controlled by foreign
governments or other foreign
entities are free to spend
money to elect or defeat
federal candidates,” said J.
Gerald Hebert, executive
director and director of
litigation at the Campaign
Legal Center in Washing
ton. Fred Wertheimer of
Democracy 21, a longtime
reform advocate, explained
why that is true, despite
existing legal prohibitions
against any contribution or
expenditrure by a “foreign
national” to influence a fed
eral, state or local election.
The current statute defines
a foreign corporation as any
firm that is “organized under
the laws of or having its prin
cipal place of business m a
foreign nation.” So a com
pany organized in Germany
or headquartered in China
would stUl be subject to the
existing ban.on donations.
“But there are domestic
corporations — those orga
nized imder state law in the
United States — which are
and can be controlled by for
eign interests,” Wertheimer
noted. Until the Supreme
Court overturned the ban on
corporate spending in the
Citizens United decision,
those foreign-controlled
companies were subject to
the same restrictions as
American-owned firms. By
striking down that prohibi
tion, the court’s Republican
majority freed any foreign-
controlled domestic company
to spend its funds directly
to influence our elections.
At least some of the
founders of the “tea party”
movement found this devel
opment disturbing — and
that may be why the Republi
cans reacted so angrily when
the president mentioned it.
The same may be said of
the new tax on big banks,
which Republicans have
vowed to reject even though
it is designed to recoup the
costs of the bailout that was
so unpopular among their
“populist” constituents.
Again, the facts are simple
enough. The legislation that
established the Troubled As
sets Relief Program — with
many Republican votes
— required the president
to claw back the program’s
hundreds of billions of dol
lars through a dedicated tax.
As designed by the Obama
economic team, that tax falls
solely on the largest financial
firms and penalizes them
according to the degree of
leveraged risk those firms
have taken on. Its designa
tion as a “responsibility
fee” is not merely a way to
avoid uttering the word
“tax,” but recognizes that the.
economic and social costs
of the recession must be
charged to those companies
and their irresponsible (and
sometimes niegal) practices.
Again, the Republican re
sponse is anything but popu
list, unless that term has lost
all meaning. The Republican
National Committee chair
man, Michael Steele, and an
array of the party’s elected
officials marched to the
microphones to parrot the
same arguments articulated
by the bankers: They’ve
already paid back the money!
They’re going to pass the
tax on to their consumers!
And a recession is no time
to raise taxes anyway!
The new GOP idols, Scott
Brown of Massachusetts and
Marco Rubio of Florida, were
the most eager critics of any
attempt to tax the bankers.
The more Republicans
claim to change, the more
they remain the same. The
more they wrap themselves
in dubious populism, the
more they wfil defend
the wealthy and power
ful, without respect to
national sovereignty and
the national interest.
Joe Conason writes for the
New York Observer (www.ob-
server.com). To find out more
about Joe Conason, visit the
Creators Syndicate website at
www.creators.com.
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