Angus MacDonald

The celebration of President Ford some months ago was magnificent but overpowering. In the long history of England, no king or queen received the adulation given to our former president. Mrs. Ford had to withstand hours of praises of her husband, and I marveled at her endurance. Many of the other dignitaries must have tired.

President Ford was a decent man, and therein was his virtue. He was not brilliant. He was no great orator. He did not stand out in anything but simple decency. I do not doubt many politicians drooled at Ford's funeral. "If he can be President, so can I."

President Carter has already laid out plans for a splendid funeral when he dies. Whether Carter took the initiative to decide how many ceremonies should celebrate his death or whether he was invited to outline his preferences I do not know, but I am of the opinion that, in the celebration of our presidents, less is better than more, and enough is enough. Mr. Carter has been at great pains since his retirement to convince the country he was a good man and a good president. I do know IRAs were earning about 16 percent during his presidency and we bought as many as we could. We have not seen anything like 16 percent since his time.

President Bush has two years to the end of his presidency, and the would-be presidents are busy. Hillary Clinton has been campaigning for eight years and what she believes varies with the political climate. She opposes the war in Iraq, complains about excessive profits by some oil companies, and suggests profits should be confiscated, and directed to programs she would recommend. Note her modesty "I am the most qualified person in the United States to be president!" Barack Obama has little experience but has the advantage of being half black and half white. It is fashionable to promote minorities. What he believes is not clear but he seems more radical than Hillary and is doing his best to say what is popular.

We may assume the candidates of the Democratic Party will have the same political philosophy as those presently in office. Democrats in office vote down judicial nominees of the president who swear to uphold the U.S. Constitution, which strongly suggests that old democrats and the presumptive new democrats do not believe in the constitution they swear to uphold. They say they believe in the U.S. constitution, but speech is for decoration.

Would-be Republican presidents are of mixed worth. Senator John MaCain, Rudy Guiliani, and Mitt Romney, splendid candidates all, have mixed messages. None of them are pure conservatives. Newt Gingrich is the most brilliant, good looking, tall enough, with a hairy head, a good voice, clear diction, and a conservative message that knocks you off your feet, but when he was speaker of the House in 1994, committed to reform, he quickly secured funds for the construction of seven C-130J transport planes in his district, though the Pentagon only wanted one. He opposed those who put principle before money.

The best political speech I have heard in the last few years was by Governor Sarah Palin at her inauguration as governor of Alaska. Ronald Reagan could not have done better. I wish she were running for president, but she is beginning a new term in Alaska, replacing a governor who needed replacement. She will bless her state and her country.

Candidates pursue the presidency for the sake of glory, and that is the end of it. Partisanship dominates even when politicians ask for bipartisanship. Honest simplicity has no chance. The people understand but can do nothing because all candidates have a dream of glory.

The central item today is the war in Iraq. Everyone criticizes President Bush, speaking with authority as though they were graduates of West Point. It is admitted by all that intelligence underestimated the insane pettiness of the Iraqi tribes, willing to kill each other over trivialities, but the problem of the Middle East needs a more complicated statement than "bring the boys home." Oil from the Middle East dominates the oil supply of the world. Iran is determined to gain nuclear power, is destabilizing Iraq, and aims to dominate the Middle East. If Iran reaches its goal, the oil supply of the world, and the United States, will be in the control of the uncivilized president of Iran.

Citizens of Iran despise their government, thinking of it as we do, but they are powerless under the control of wicked clerics. Saudi Arabia's domestic control of oil is threatened with the aggression of Iran and is increasing output to undermine that country's income. Iran can produce oil but not refine it and needs cash. But how reliable is Saudi Arabia? They are bought friends who use income to establish mosques around the world, and in the United States, to advance their violent religion and oppose the United States.

Politicians criticize President Bush but they do almost nothing to make the United States energy independent. The age of oil is now one hundred years. My recollection is that the free world was in need of great supplies of rubber at the outbreak of World War I. Rubber had been grown naturally. We invented a substitute. We need a like substitute for oil. Imagine the howling of Arab countries if they had to live by sand! They are helpless without our money.

We could extend the supply of oil if we drill for it, but we won't drill in Alaska lest the reindeer be unhappy. We won't explore offshore because that would upset the fish. We could create energy with nuclear power, but we won't do that because wasteland would be harmed! Hydrogen energizes autos better than gasoline and has no pollution, only a little water vapor, but we fiddle around with wind and corn, knowing these are no more than drops in the bucket. We think it better to criticize President Bush because, we say, he is the cause of all problems.

In the 6th century B.C. Confucius was traveling through rugged and desolate mountains when he found an old woman crying beside a grave. Asked the cause of her grief she replied, "My husband's father was killed here by a tiger, and my husband also, and now my son has met the same fate." Asked why she continued to live in such a dangerous place, she replied, "There is no oppressive government here."

Confucius told his disciples how to regulate the state:

The ancients who wished to illustrate the highest virtue throughout the empire first ordered well their own states. Wishing to order well their states, they first regulated their families. Wishing to regulate their families, they first regulated their own selves. Wishing to regulate their own selves, they first regulated their thoughts. Wishing to be sincere in their thoughts, they first extended to the utmost their knowledge. Such extension of their knowledge lay in the investigation of things.

Things being investigated, knowledge became complete. Their knowledge being complete, their thoughts were sincere. Their thoughts being sincere, their hearts were rectified. Their hearts being rectified, their own selves were rectified. Their own selves being rectified, their families were regulated. Their families being regulated, their states were rightly governed. Their states being rightly governed, the whole empire was made tranquil and happy. *

The honor of courage consists in fighting, not in winning. -Michel de Montaigne

Erratum: In the Feb. 2007 issue of Joseph Fulda's article a line in the first paragraph should have been: ". . . after his having served six months jail time. . . ." instead of ". . . after his having served six months."

The quotes following each article have been gathered by The Federalist Patriot at: http://FederalistPatriot.US/services.asp.

The following is a summary of the February 2007, issue of the St. Croix Review:

In the editorial "Democracy," Angus MacDonald writes that the United States is a republic and not a democracy. He believes the nation to be profoundly threatened by the national debt, the trade deficit, and household debt. The solution is to cut spending and live within a budget we can afford.

Herbert London, in "A 2007 Economic Forecast," believes that the economy will grow at a slower pace, but that there will be no recession; in "Policy Conundrums" he points out issues (dependency on oil, immigration, peace in the Middle East, etc.) that offer little prospect of solution given current political divisions; in "The Iraq Study Group Report and the Munich Accord" he writes that the proposals would lead nowhere, and in fact would cause great harm if followed; in "It May Be Too Late for Europe" he describes the political, economic, demographic mess Europe has fallen into and sees the Europeans unable to save themselves; in "Complacency on Both Sides of the Atlantic" he believes that Americans and British have become desensitized to the eruption of bloodshed in the world, and that our popular cultures "dull the capacity for serious thought."

Allan Brownfeld, in "Milton Friedman, 1912-2006: A Champion and Philosopher of Freedom," marks the passing of a great economist who changed the understanding and practice of economics for the better in this century; in "Finally, the Millions Killed by Communist Regimes Will Be Memorialized in Washington," he details the horrific and vast crimes committed by Communists in the 20th century, and the subversion of the U.S. government by Soviet spies, and the cover provided to the Communists by intellectuals and journalists.

In "Solzhenitsyn and Iran," John Howard recalls the words of the famous Russian, to inspire purpose and courage in our confrontation with militant Islam.

Arnold Beichman sounds a warning in "Meet Today's Murder Inc. Headquartered in the Kremlin."

In "Understanding the Downtrend," Winkfield F. Twyman Jr. takes a hardheaded look at the economic trend lines of blacks attending law schools.

Harry Neuwirth writes about scarcity, and the need to find another source of energy, in "Petroleum and Prices."

Thomas Martin, in "From Anno Domini to the Common Era," relates how Kentucky's educators plan to remove B.C. and A.D. from dates used in the classrooms. Culturally sensitive educators believe that sparing the feelings of non-Christians has priority over our heritage.

Anthony Harrigan, in "The Language of Worship," reminds us of the beautiful language and the power of faith that is the Anglican Book of Common Prayer.

In light of the recent order of the New Jersey Supreme Court to the legislature of New Jersey to grant rights to single sex couples equivalent to those of married couples, Pat Buchanan, in "Why Submit to Judicial Tyranny?" asks "Who rules New Jersey?"

In "A Conservative Defense of Marion Barry," Joseph S. Fulda recounts how the U.S. Attorney's office lured the mayor into criminal behavior by taking advantage of his human weakness. Fulda believes that the justice system was playing the part of the "Christian Devil."

In "Political Splits," Robert Wichterman observes that the U.S. electorate is polarized at a time when we are threatened by dangerous enemies, but he notes that we have been through worse before.

John D'Aloia Jr. welcomes the about-face of health organizations that have decided to bring back a banned substance in order to prevent Malaria in "Myths about DDT Are Dissipating."

Jigs Gardner demonstrates the power of Mark Twain and the influence he had on writers such as Ernest Hemingway and Sherwood Anderson in "Writers for Conservatives: 7, Huck Finn and Friends."

Thomas Martin

Thomas Martin teaches in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. You may contact Thomas Martin at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Forget public schools' religious wars about intelligent design and evolution, students' religious songs and artwork, after-school Bible clubs, graduation prayers, and gay sensitivity training. The latest fuss involves letters. The staff of Kentucky's education department proposed guidelines this year that would eliminate the conventional designations of years as B.C. ("Before Christ") or A.D. ("Anno Domini," meaning "in the year of the Lord"). The proposed secular substitutes to shun references to the birth of Jesus Christ were B.C.E. ("Before the Common Era") and C.E. ("Common Era"). Several other states have shifted to that nonsectarian style in history curriculums, since it is preferred by Jews and increasingly observed by secular scholars.

After reading this in the local newspaper, I asked a student in my Introduction to Ethics class, for the date. Surprised, [what a simple question] she responded, "September 22, 2006." "That is right," I said, "but is there any more that needs to be added to the date." A puzzled look came over her face, "No, that is the date." I wrote the date on the board, added A.D., and asked the students what that meant. No one knew what the letters represented, although two students thought A.D. stood for "after death," to which I responded, "After the death of whom?" "Christ," they knew. [Apparently, the edict from Kentucky's education department has not permeated the history curriculum in Nebraska-it will only be a matter of time.]

The students are partially right. A.D. does have to do with Christ; however, A.D. does not stand for after death but for Anno Domini, meaning in the year of the Lord, which is marked from the year of Christ's birth. Therefore, it is September 22, 2006 A.D.

In this age of cultural sensitivity and secular, state-run high school education funded by the taxpayers, it is not surprising that somewhere in Kentucky some group or board of culturally sensitive people are worried about the possibility of offending Jews. Then again Christ, himself a Jew, had that effect on the Jews. Imagine a man claiming to be the Messiah of which the prophets spoke. Why it is blasphemy!

The very idea of Anno Domini, of this being the year of the Lord, is a replay of Jesus' trial before Caiphas in which he is charged with being a blasphemer. Here is how it went: Caiphas, after hearing witnesses who claimed that Jesus said, "I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it again in three days," asked:

I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God.

To which Jesus responded,

Thou hast said; nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.

At this point it is easy for Caiphas to judge:

He hath spoken blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses? Behold, ye have heard his blasphemy.

Now the question for us is, either Jesus is a blasphemer (as Caiphas charged) or he is who he claimed to be--and the apostles professed him to be. This is not a question that ought to be decided by a committee, school board, or "secular scholars." Yet this is exactly who is deciding what is being taught in the public schools without any sense of the implications of what changing the date from Anno Domini to the Common Era means to the freedom Americans hold to be God given.

Jesus' claim is unique. Mohammed did not suggest equality with Allah. Moses was never placed on a par with Yahweh. Nor did Buddha or Confucius ever make assertions of divinity. Not one of these religious figures professed to be the Son of God, who had come to earth to redeem man, destroy death, and be present at the end of human history for the final judgment of the living and the dead.

We are living in an age in which the "secular scholar," for lack of a better term, wants everyone to adhere to his dogma of cultural relativism which claims there are no universal absolute values; however, there are varieties of cultures whose beliefs and values are true for them. So out of respect for people from other cultures in America the date will be changed from Anno Domini to the Common Era. All cultures are entitled to their beliefs and that entitlement ought to be tolerated and appreciated by others in America. Here is an example of the tenets of secular scholars, which come from a group calling itself the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance:

Since only one in three humans on earth is a Christian, some theologians and other authors felt that non-religious, neutral terms like C.E., and B.C.E. would be less offensive to the non-Christian majority. Forcing a Hindu, for example, to use A.D. and B.C. might be seen by some as coercing them to acknowledge the supremacy of the Christian God and of Jesus Christ. Consider the analogous situation in the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance. The most recent version of this pledge includes the phrase: "Under God." Imagine what a Wiccan (who believes in a God and a Goddess), or many Buddhists and strong atheists feel when having to recite those words. Consider how a Christian would feel if the pledge read "Under Buddha" or "Under Allah."

We are asked to be sensitive and imagine what a Wiccan, Buddhist, Moslem, or a strong Atheist [as opposed to a lukewarm atheist?] might feel [this being the operative word] when having to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. We are not asked to think what a Wiccan, Buddhist, Moslem, or weak or strong atheist thinks when having to recite the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance, because the relativist dogma of all truths being relative to the people who hold them leaves no room for a thoughtful discussion of the tenets of religious dogmas.

All truths being equal means there is but one truth: There is no truth. Therefore, why discuss the truths of other cultures that are not true.

Back to the Pledge of Allegiance and the notion of how a Christian would feel when forced to say he believes in "one nation under Buddha" or "one nation under Allah." This analogy does not work for two reasons: first, America is not a nation under Buddha; second, America is not a nation under Allah. This does not mean Buddhists and Moslems are not free to worship in America; it simply means that America is not, nor could it ever have been, a nation founded on the tenets of Buddha, Mohammed, the gods of Hinduism, or the philosophies of the weak or strong atheists.

Man is not made in the image of God for a Buddhist, Moslem, Hindi, or, obviously, a strong or even feeble atheist. A Buddhist does not believe that he has a free will; a Moslem knows all is the will of Allah, a Hindi is lodged in a caste system; and an atheist does not have a soul, free will, or a conscience, as man is only a biological accident ultimately signifying nothing.

It is not as though changing A.D. to C.E. will change the nature of creation or alter what Christ's birth means to mankind. However, acquiescing to the secular scholar will have Christians hearing the cockcrow for the third time along with Peter each day they forsake the Christian era for the Common Era for fear of not being culturally sensitive. Alexander Solzhenitsyn says somewhere, "To destroy a people, you must first sever their roots." What better way to destroy the roots of America than by teaching students in public schools they are living in the Common Era.

There have been other attempts to displace Anno Domini: The movers and shakers of the French Revolution marked the date from the September 22, 1792: 1 Vendemiaire and I of the First French Republic. The Italian Fascists used the standard system along with Roman numerals to denote the number of years since the establishment of the Fascist government in 1922. Therefore, 1934, for example, was Year XII. [The secular scholars and staffers in Kentucky are in good company.]

There is a difference between living in the year of the Lord and living in the Common Era. Living in the year of the Lord means that man's life is not his own; he is living in God's creation and ultimately subject to His will. This is why Christians freely pray, "Thy will be done," as opposed to thinking freedom is permission to be led by their own wills. Furthermore, man entered creation in the image of God and entered time with his fall from grace, in an era known as B.C. [Before Christ], which extends to the redemptive time of Anno Domini with the birth of the Messiah, the savior of mankind. For lack of knowledge or lack of belief, the secular scholar has arbitrarily replaced A.D. with C.E. without having a point of demarcation, e.g., the French Revolution, the establishment of the Fascist government of Italy, or the birth of Christ, with which to mark history.

Living in the Common Era is an appropriate term for a cultural relativist who denies the tenets of every religious dogma. In the Common Era, American students will have to "return" to the pre-American countries of their forefathers who were commoners, ordinary people, without rank or distinction of any kind, lodged beneath lords, knights, and squires.

The secular scholars have chosen well. C.E. is a fitting expression because, as a commoner, man is not made in the image of God, a sacred creature worthy of respect as a god-"what you do to the least of these you do unto me."

In all of this, it is important to remember the party slogan of Big Brother in George Orwell's 1984: "Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." Let the staffers at state departments of education and secular scholars rule the present, and we forsake the inherent dignity of man who is meant for God.

So it goes. *

"A thankful heart is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others." --Cicero

John D'Aloia Jr.

John D' Aloia Jr. is a retired navy captain and submarine commander. He is a columnist for several newspapers in Kansas.

Readers know what I think of the UN. Do not think that I have gone over the edge, but I want to give an atta-boy to the World Health Organization for supporting the use of DDT to control the malaria epidemic that claims the lives of millions each year. In September Arata Kochi, director of the WHO Global Malaria Program, stated that:

We must take a position based on the science and the data. One of the best tools we have against malaria is indoor residual house spraying. Of the dozen insecticides WHO has approved as safe for house spraying, the most effective is DDT.

Another WHO official said: "Indoor residual spraying is useful to quickly reduce the number of [malaria] infections . . . and DDT presents no health risk when used properly."

Some environmentalists still call for the complete ban of DDT, period. For those who inhabit these groups, human life is a cancer on the earth; malaria helps to reduce the number of humans. Banning DDT keeps the process working and saves the lives of countless mosquitoes. The Congress of Racial Equality has been working for years to get the use of DDT reinstated as a means of reducing human suffering and its economic impacts. Paul Driessen, a Senior Fellow at CORE, was quoted in an article in the December Environmental & Climate News on the impacts of malaria:

In addition to the needless deaths (100,000 people die of malaria each year in Uganda), countless millions are too sick to go to work or school. Other millions must stay home to care for sick family members. Is it any wonder that Sub-Sahara Africa is, and remains, one of the poorest regions on Earth?

The U.S. government, which initiated the worldwide ban on the use of DDT in spite of the scientific evidence that it was not the end-of-the-world disaster claimed by Rachel Carson, is changing its policy. Steven Milloy in a Fox News article reported that the U.S. Agency for International Development has endorsed and will fund the use of DDT for indoor spraying in Africa. The European Union is not so enlightened. Milloy also reported that the EU has threatened Uganda with a complete ban on its agricultural exports if it goes ahead with indoor DDT spraying. Milloy ended his article with "Let's forget the myths about DDT--it's time to stop malaria now." *

"Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm." -James Madison

Joseph S. Fulda

Joseph Fulda is a freelance writer living in New York City. He is the author of Eight Steps Towards Libertarianism.

Background: The U.S. Constitution provides in Article I, Section 8 that the capital district, wherever it may be, shall be under the exclusive control of the U.S. Congress. After considerable lobbying by residents, Congress granted the District of Columbia "home rule" in steps, with a mayor and city council elected by its residents. The first mayor was Walter E. Washington, a quiet, unassuming man right for the times. He was eventually defeated by the flamboyant activist Marion S. Barry. Barry, who holds a B.S. and an M.S. in chemistry, served as mayor for twelve years, till being "busted" in 1990. Ever the comeback kid, he soon assumed a seat on the D.C. Council, possible because he was only a misdemeanant, not a felon. In 1994 he defeated both primary and general election opponents to become mayor again. After four more years he had had enough-but he returned to the D. C. Council. In his first term as mayor he was credited with decent stewardship, but afterwards gained a deserved reputation for maladministration which culminated in the city being put-like New York-in receivership. To his admirers his personal sincerity and goodwill-and his genuine heart for others-were never in doubt. That and his undeniable charisma are what have kept him a perennial figure on the Washington scene. The following was written shortly after his stunning win for his fourth term-after his having served six months jail time. The conservative media wrote him o with ridicule and with charges, true enough, of disingenuous appeals to racialism by both his supporters and his detractors. The occasional exception was The National Review, which had this to say:

Barry is a demagogue, a liar, and a Renaissance man of degeneracy, but he has a point: extraordinary resources were devoted to trapping him into an act of criminal behavior. He should have been removed by the voters, who will be less disposed to throw him out as a result of the government's tactics

And, later on:

Marion Barry was finally convicted on one charge of cocaine possession. The jury acquitted him on another, and was hung on a dozen more. . . . Not a bad outcome, really; the government used dubious methods to catch him in an offense that-let's face it-isn't really regarded as all that serious by much of the population.

NR went on to say that he was finished, but carefully added "for now." What follows is a retrospective with deep lessons for today as more and more law-enforcement efforts are diverted from catching criminals to setting up weak-willed folks and turning them into criminals. True, it often doesn't take that much, human weaknesses what they are, but if, as George Will argues, government is always a teacher, the lesson seems to be: Bring out the worst in your neighbor, so that then you can condemn him. Not very Christian. Not very American.

*****

The gap between words preached and deeds practiced is known to many as "hypocrisy." But isn't "It is a sin, and I have sinned, and I ask for forgiveness" more a sign of honesty before man, and humility before God than the sinner's consistent insistence, "It is not wrong, and I have done no wrong"? The mayor of Washington, D.C. is a man whose words on welfare reform have been right on target. Marion Barry is also a man with large areas of weakness to which he is likely to yield with sufficient temptation. But are we not all beset by large areas of weakness to which we are likely to yield with sufficient temptation? Yet all of us are not like the mayor in speaking the truth about these weaknesses. Mayor Barry fell because of his weaknesses, but God allowed him to rise again. Is it not possible that his public humility and honesty regarding his fall from grace endeared him to man and God alike-or must we look for racialism in everything?

And what of that fall? It is often forgotten that the overwhelming majority of the government's case against Mayor Barry-including felony perjury charges-was rejected by the jury; they convicted him of just one count of a petty offense, and had they been aware of their power to nullify the law they doubtless would not have convicted him of even that. Why? Must we presume that the jury acted on racial motives? Perhaps they were simply disgusted-as I was-with the conduct of the U.S. Attorney trying the case. What sort of man is it who uses a man's former lover, a much younger model to boot, to entice him into the mortal sin of adultery in order to catch him at the petty offense of drug use? If I had to make the call, I would surely say that the conduct of the government was far more vicious, in both senses of the word, than the conduct of the hapless defendant. Yes, indeed, Mr. Barry was predisposed to both adultery and drug use-so what does our honorable government do? Steer him clear of the temptations he finds very difficult to resist, or play the part of the "Christian Devil" to his weaknesses in the basest sort of way? The latter, it appears. The principle here is "Get him, and never mind how." What Mayor Barry did, he did out of human weakness. What the U.S. Attorney's office did, it did out of calculation with the sting operation personally approved by the Attorney General. Judged by traditional moral standards, which is worse?

Yes, it is true that Mr. Barry's re-emergence was largely the result of street youth. But why do we have to see race in that? Perhaps we can see in it, instead, a sense of fair play-even by the rules of the street-absent in the office of the U.S. Attorney. And perhaps we can see it as respect for telling it like it is, whatever one's weaknesses. Marion Barry was mayor of Washington, D.C. again because the majority of voters was able to identify with a man with weaknesses who is able to admit to them and with a victim of a criminal-justice system that is more interested in making hits on those on high than it is on doing its job. Mr. Barry was also mayor again because he is secure enough to accept himself as he is, contradictions, failings, and all, and deal with them, publicly and with considerable grace under considerable pressure: How many of us can say that and still be telling no lie? *

"Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person." -Mother Teresa

Pat Buchanan

Pat Buchanan is a founding editor of The American Conservative magazine, and the author of many books including State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America.

If Gov. Jon Corzine wished to make himself a hero to Middle America, the opportunity [was] at hand. All he [needed do was] inform the New Jersey Supreme Court he will neither submit nor sign the law it has ordered enacted--to put homosexual unions on a par with marriage. [Editorial note: in Dec. the legislature passed and Gov. Corzine signed such a law.]

At root, what that 4-3 decision, ordering the legislature to enact a new law sanctioning civil unions or gay marriage, is about is: Who governs New Jersey? It is about who decides what law shall be--elected legislators or judges appointed for life.

In our War of Independence in which New Jersey was overrun repeatedly by British troops, at issue was whether George III and a Parliament sitting in London in which Americans had no voice, would govern us, or whether we would rule ourselves. From April 1775 to Yorktown in 1781, Americans fought and died to end that rule of kings--only to have their meek and timid heirs submit to a rule of judges.

Let us go back to the era of Earl Warren that began in 1954, and consider what, in the span of a half-century, U.S. judges and Supreme Court justices, abetted by state jurists, have done to America.

God, Bible study, prayer, and the Ten Commandments have been ordered out of all public schools and the public square of a nation that once proudly boasted of itself as God's country. Pornography has been declared protected by the First Amendment. Cities have been ripped apart as judges have ordered students, based on color alone, bused across crime-ridden cities to achieve an artificial racial balance. Abortion, homosexual sodomy, and naked dancing in public bars have been declared to be new constitutional rights.

Of all these outrages and idiocies, one thing may be said: No legislature, no executive at the state or federal level would have survived imposing such measures upon us. They would have been hurled from office at the next election. When homosexual marriage was put on the ballot in 13 states in 2004, it was routed in every one by landslides as great as six to one. America rejects it.

Upon what ground, then, does the New Jersey Supreme Court stand to order an elected legislature to enact a law the people do not want? Answer: The court said that to deny homosexuals the same rights as married couples is to treat them unequally, and this violates the Constitution of New Jersey:

Although we cannot find that a fundamental right to same-sex marriage exists in this state, the unequal dispensation of rights and benefits to committed same-sex partners can no longer be tolerated under our state constitution.

The operative words here are "no longer be tolerated." What the court is saying is that, though there is no right to same-sex marriage in New Jersey, and the state has never voted the rights and benefits to homosexuals it has for married couples, we, the judges in our wisdom, declare this to be intolerable.

Therefore, you, the legislators of New Jersey, and you, Gov. Corzine, are ordered to change the laws of New Jersey to conform to our idea of equality. A tiny minority of judges in America now dictates to the great silent majority.

This is exactly what happened in Massachusetts in 2003. And had Gov. Romney told the Massachusetts Supreme Court that its 4-3 decision had no constitutional basis, and that he and the legislature had no intention of obeying its order, Mitt Romney would be the front-runner for the Republican nomination in 2008.

When Shay's Rebellion of farmers broke out in Massachusetts in 1786, Thomas Jefferson wrote to James Madison,

I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.

It is time for a little rebellion in New Jersey, and America. For what is taking place, what has taken place, is a bloodless coup by judges who have arrogated to themselves the powers of legislatures to make laws and remake society in their own image--without recourse to referenda or free elections.

When judges in New Jersey can order legislators to write new laws that conform to their ideology, laws the people have not only not demanded, but viscerally and violently oppose, we have ceased to be a free country or a democratic republic.

"Who rules?" That is what is at issue in New Jersey.

For 50 years this nation permitted the Warren Court, and its successors and imitators in the state courts, to create a body of judge-made law that has altered the character of our country, very much for the worse.

Again and again the people have voted for candidates for president, Congress, and governor who promised to ring down the curtain on this half-century of judicial tyranny. But still the judges persist in issuing orders that have no basis either in precedent or in the written constitutions they have sworn to defend.

Such judges need to be defied and they need to be impeached. Not obeyed. *

"It is only when men begin to worship that they begin to grow." -Calvin Coolidge

Anthony Harrigan

Anthony Harrigan is the author, co-author, or editor of twenty books. He has lectured at Yale University, Vanderbilt University, the University of Colorado, and the National War College.

Listening to a CD of the King's College chapel choir at Cambridge University in England, I was struck again by the extraordinary beauty of the language of the ancient Anglican Book of Common Prayer. It is one of the supreme literary marvels of the English language, combining purity of expression, great dignity, and the best of English spirituality. I consider myself tremendously fortunate that from my earliest years I was exposed to this beautiful language of faith--the expression derived from our English forebears of the 16th and 17th centuries. The historic beliefs of the Catholic Church found expression in the written word of Anglo-Saxon civilization.

Some might argue that the language of faith is irrelevant, that only the bare bones of theology count. But faith is not an arid, abstract experience. The language in which it is expressed is integral to the process of understanding and believing. The power of the epistles written by St. Paul is very much the product of the extraordinary gift of language he possessed, as exemplified in the soaring words of First Corinthians. Generation after generation has been moved and inspired by the language of his letters to the new Christian communities in the Roman-Greek world.

Tragically, the writers of the new prayer book concluded that they could improve on the ancient language found in the 1928 Prayer Book and the earlier Prayer Book of the Church of England. They imagined that contemporary people could not understand 16th and 17th century language. So they dumbed down the prayers and the liturgy, substituting drab, pedestrian, late 20th century wording for the rich language of earlier times--the period when the English language was at its height. Imagine what English literature would be like if this rationale were applied to Shakespeare, John Donne, and other giants in our literary heritage. Imagine if the language of the 18th century U.S. Constitution were tampered with in this manner so that the great document was revised to conform with the Congressional Record of today.

This approach is a prescription for literary atrocities and the gross impairment of meaning. Indeed it is well to remember that most of the authors of the U.S. Constitution had grown up on the Book of Common Prayer and had their literary styles shaped by its superb, balanced language. As every good writer knows, style and meaning are inextricably combined. As one listens to the chants sung by the King's Chapel choir, one is reminded that the words of the liturgy represent the ultimate model of literary expression for anyone in the English-speaking world who aspires to be a writer or public speaker. For all its richness, it also is perfectly succinct and embodies completely economical expression.

As one listens to the chants sung by the King's College choir, one appreciates the familiarity of the words. They are imprinted on the minds and hearts of those raised in the Anglican tradition of worship. There are very few, if any, spiritual situations that aren't covered by the prayers in the Book of Common Prayer or the order for the celebration of holy communion. The Litany, the oldest part of the Book of Common Prayer, is both specific and comprehensive as a form for asking personal deliverance, expressed so well in the second sentence in which we ask to be delivered:

. . . from all blindness of heart, from pride, vainglory and hypocrisy, from envy, hatred and malice, and all uncharitableness.

In Morning Prayer, one confesses one's sins in the most clear and simple and complete terms, saying that:

We have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep.

And that:

We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts.

And in the prayer for the whole state of Christ's church we ask the Lord to:

. . . comfort and succor all those who, in this transitory life, are in trouble, sorrow, need, sickness, or any other adversity.

These are priceless words that have provided immense spiritual help down through the generations in the English-speaking world. To deprive the faithful of them surely is a sin. The Book of Common Prayer is a spiritual resource that our civilization must not be deprived of. If it is lost to those Christians whose forebears had it, then it must be restored. It must be cherished in the decades and centuries ahead as part of the armor of light. *

"There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." -Albert Einstein

Thomas Martin

Thomas Martin teaches in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. You may contact Thomas Martin at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Forget public schools' religious wars about intelligent design and evolution, students' religious songs and artwork, after-school Bible clubs, graduation prayers, and gay sensitivity training. The latest fuss involves letters. The staff of Kentucky's education department proposed guidelines this year that would eliminate the conventional designations of years as B.C. ("Before Christ") or A.D. ("Anno Domini," meaning "in the year of the Lord"). The proposed secular substitutes to shun references to the birth of Jesus Christ were B.C.E. ("Before the Common Era") and C.E. ("Common Era"). Several other states have shifted to that nonsectarian style in history curriculums, since it is preferred by Jews and increasingly observed by secular scholars.

After reading this in the local newspaper, I asked a student in my Introduction to Ethics class, for the date. Surprised, [what a simple question] she responded, "September 22, 2006." "That is right," I said, "but is there any more that needs to be added to the date." A puzzled look came over her face, "No, that is the date." I wrote the date on the board, added A.D., and asked the students what that meant. No one knew what the letters represented, although two students thought A.D. stood for "after death," to which I responded, "After the death of whom?" "Christ," they knew. [Apparently, the edict from Kentucky's education department has not permeated the history curriculum in Nebraska-it will only be a matter of time.]

The students are partially right. A.D. does have to do with Christ; however, A.D. does not stand for after death but for Anno Domini, meaning in the year of the Lord, which is marked from the year of Christ's birth. Therefore, it is September 22, 2006 A.D.

In this age of cultural sensitivity and secular, state-run high school education funded by the taxpayers, it is not surprising that somewhere in Kentucky some group or board of culturally sensitive people are worried about the possibility of offending Jews. Then again Christ, himself a Jew, had that effect on the Jews. Imagine a man claiming to be the Messiah of which the prophets spoke. Why it is blasphemy!

The very idea of Anno Domini, of this being the year of the Lord, is a replay of Jesus' trial before Caiphas in which he is charged with being a blasphemer. Here is how it went: Caiphas, after hearing witnesses who claimed that Jesus said, "I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it again in three days," asked:

I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God.

To which Jesus responded,

Thou hast said; nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.

At this point it is easy for Caiphas to judge:

He hath spoken blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses? Behold, ye have heard his blasphemy.

Now the question for us is, either Jesus is a blasphemer (as Caiphas charged) or he is who he claimed to be--and the apostles professed him to be. This is not a question that ought to be decided by a committee, school board, or "secular scholars." Yet this is exactly who is deciding what is being taught in the public schools without any sense of the implications of what changing the date from Anno Domini to the Common Era means to the freedom Americans hold to be God given.

Jesus' claim is unique. Mohammed did not suggest equality with Allah. Moses was never placed on a par with Yahweh. Nor did Buddha or Confucius ever make assertions of divinity. Not one of these religious figures professed to be the Son of God, who had come to earth to redeem man, destroy death, and be present at the end of human history for the final judgment of the living and the dead.

We are living in an age in which the "secular scholar," for lack of a better term, wants everyone to adhere to his dogma of cultural relativism which claims there are no universal absolute values; however, there are varieties of cultures whose beliefs and values are true for them. So out of respect for people from other cultures in America the date will be changed from Anno Domini to the Common Era. All cultures are entitled to their beliefs and that entitlement ought to be tolerated and appreciated by others in America. Here is an example of the tenets of secular scholars, which come from a group calling itself the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance:

Since only one in three humans on earth is a Christian, some theologians and other authors felt that non-religious, neutral terms like C.E., and B.C.E. would be less offensive to the non-Christian majority. Forcing a Hindu, for example, to use A.D. and B.C. might be seen by some as coercing them to acknowledge the supremacy of the Christian God and of Jesus Christ. Consider the analogous situation in the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance. The most recent version of this pledge includes the phrase: "Under God." Imagine what a Wiccan (who believes in a God and a Goddess), or many Buddhists and strong atheists feel when having to recite those words. Consider how a Christian would feel if the pledge read "Under Buddha" or "Under Allah."

We are asked to be sensitive and imagine what a Wiccan, Buddhist, Moslem, or a strong Atheist [as opposed to a lukewarm atheist?] might feel [this being the operative word] when having to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. We are not asked to think what a Wiccan, Buddhist, Moslem, or weak or strong atheist thinks when having to recite the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance, because the relativist dogma of all truths being relative to the people who hold them leaves no room for a thoughtful discussion of the tenets of religious dogmas.

All truths being equal means there is but one truth: There is no truth. Therefore, why discuss the truths of other cultures that are not true.

Back to the Pledge of Allegiance and the notion of how a Christian would feel when forced to say he believes in "one nation under Buddha" or "one nation under Allah." This analogy does not work for two reasons: first, America is not a nation under Buddha; second, America is not a nation under Allah. This does not mean Buddhists and Moslems are not free to worship in America; it simply means that America is not, nor could it ever have been, a nation founded on the tenets of Buddha, Mohammed, the gods of Hinduism, or the philosophies of the weak or strong atheists.

Man is not made in the image of God for a Buddhist, Moslem, Hindi, or, obviously, a strong or even feeble atheist. A Buddhist does not believe that he has a free will; a Moslem knows all is the will of Allah, a Hindi is lodged in a caste system; and an atheist does not have a soul, free will, or a conscience, as man is only a biological accident ultimately signifying nothing.

It is not as though changing A.D. to C.E. will change the nature of creation or alter what Christ's birth means to mankind. However, acquiescing to the secular scholar will have Christians hearing the cockcrow for the third time along with Peter each day they forsake the Christian era for the Common Era for fear of not being culturally sensitive. Alexander Solzhenitsyn says somewhere, "To destroy a people, you must first sever their roots." What better way to destroy the roots of America than by teaching students in public schools they are living in the Common Era.

There have been other attempts to displace Anno Domini: The movers and shakers of the French Revolution marked the date from the September 22, 1792: 1 Vendemiaire and I of the First French Republic. The Italian Fascists used the standard system along with Roman numerals to denote the number of years since the establishment of the Fascist government in 1922. Therefore, 1934, for example, was Year XII. [The secular scholars and staffers in Kentucky are in good company.]

There is a difference between living in the year of the Lord and living in the Common Era. Living in the year of the Lord means that man's life is not his own; he is living in God's creation and ultimately subject to His will. This is why Christians freely pray, "Thy will be done," as opposed to thinking freedom is permission to be led by their own wills. Furthermore, man entered creation in the image of God and entered time with his fall from grace, in an era known as B.C. [Before Christ], which extends to the redemptive time of Anno Domini with the birth of the Messiah, the savior of mankind. For lack of knowledge or lack of belief, the secular scholar has arbitrarily replaced A.D. with C.E. without having a point of demarcation, e.g., the French Revolution, the establishment of the Fascist government of Italy, or the birth of Christ, with which to mark history.

Living in the Common Era is an appropriate term for a cultural relativist who denies the tenets of every religious dogma. In the Common Era, American students will have to "return" to the pre-American countries of their forefathers who were commoners, ordinary people, without rank or distinction of any kind, lodged beneath lords, knights, and squires.

The secular scholars have chosen well. C.E. is a fitting expression because, as a commoner, man is not made in the image of God, a sacred creature worthy of respect as a god-"what you do to the least of these you do unto me."

In all of this, it is important to remember the party slogan of Big Brother in George Orwell's 1984: "Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." Let the staffers at state departments of education and secular scholars rule the present, and we forsake the inherent dignity of man who is meant for God.

So it goes. *

"A thankful heart is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others." --Cicero

Harry Neuwirth

Harry Neuwirth writes from Salem, OR.

Exxon and the petroleum industry had been feeling the heat as the price of gas at the pump last summer had gone over $3.00 per gallon. Little noticed by the public, gold soared to $600 per ounce while speculators made fortunes in real estate as prices responded to the dictum that ". . . they aren't making any more": Gold, land, petroleum!

While scarcity has driven up prices, dependably high prices have brought the expensive-to-extract oil sands of Alberta and oil shales of the American west into competition with traditional cheap-oil-in-a-barrel.

As far back as the 1940s, scarcity inspired Nazi scientists to develop a formula for converting coal into gasoline that almost helped them achieve world domination. But when petroleum became readily available again after the war, coal-into-gasoline lost its appeal, though it could certainly help 21st century America through the transition period from fossil fuel to whatever science can--and will--provide in its place over the next fifty years.

It's time to concede that the era of cheap energy from fossil fuels is over; that it might be prudent to put corn back into cereal boxes and dust off the German coal formula instead. For over thirty years we've agonized over our need to import more and more petroleum from remote and fundamentally hostile nations. But we did nothing, while emerging nations with huge populations began adding to the demand for oil creating ever-greater scarcity.

Continuing high petroleum prices will be uncomfortable, but they will provide the inspiration for innovators to invest of themselves and their resources in the development of entirely new sources of energy: the sun, the sea, the molten core. Gasoline from subsidized corn squeezings isn't even a good short-term substitute. We need to get serious! *

"Perhaps the fact that we have seen millions voting themselves into complete dependence on a tyrant has made our generation understand that to choose one's government is not necessarily to secure freedom." --Fredrich August von Hayek

Winkfield F. Twyman Jr.

Winkfield Twyman is a former law professor. Twyman is a graduate of Harvard Law School and the University of Virginia. His writings have appeared in The Pennsylvania Lawyer, Authorship, and Fellow Script.

If one trades stocks and commodities, one learns quickly that money can be made by "trading with the trend." Financial markets can travel in one of three directions. Either the market for sugar, for example, is going up. The market for sugar is going down. Or, the market is directionless. There are no other possibilities.

To make money you size up the trend. You might look over the past 12 months of price data on a chart plotting daily price moves from January through December. If the prices show higher lows and higher highs, you have an up trend. If the prices show a series of lower highs and lower lows, you have a downtrend. Astute traders will draw a line connecting the lower highs. This trend line becomes resistance for future prices. Prices should be repelled by the trend line until the trend is broken.

Knowing the trend is valuable information. Trends tend to persist until the trend line is broken. Trends persist because buyers and sellers are making decisions about their expectations for future prices. Downtrends suggest anticipation of further declines into the foreseeable future.

The subjective art of trend lines can help us understand the market for black law students. Like the financial markets, the market for black law students is defined by supply and demand. There are a finite number of African American law students and there is a measurable demand for black law students. Like the financial markets, mass psychology plays a role in the ebb and flow of the market for black law students. And like financial markets, the market for African-American law students must be going up, going down, or going nowhere.

There are no other possibilities.

What is the trend line for the market of African-American law students?

To determine the trend, let's review the numbers over a representative period of time. Using 1994 as a starting point is sensible for several reasons. The number of black law students appears to have crested in 1994, so we have a visual "peak" or high point for a trend line. The twelve years between 1994 and 2006 represent a full academic cycle comparable in length to the 1st grade through 12th grade period. The length of time is long enough to account for any year-to-year wiggles in the market. Finally, the 1994-2006 time period would capture the psychology of a second-generation affirmative action population. 1968 represents the beginning of an aggressive market for black students. If we presume that twenty-six years represents a generation, then the first generation of black law students since 1968 would have terminated as a demographic cohort around 1994.

What are the numbers?

First-year black enrollment peaked at 3,432 in 1994. Since 1994, the enrollment numbers have dropped 13% to 2,975. In percentage terms, the enrollment dropped from 7.4 to 6.6 percent.

Another way to see the lower highs and lower lows is by examining the number of Black law school admits on a yearly basis:

This market is in a decided downtrend. The highs-3,884 (1994), 3790 (1998), 3664 (2004)-are lower and the lows-3,535 (1997), "lowest level in 12 years" (2005)--are lower. If this market were the commodities market for sugar, a wise trader would sell short his holdings and ride the market down until the trend came to an end.

How long will this downtrend continue? No one can say. Markets continue downward until the psychology changes. Normally, trends change when no one wants the commodity or stock. As a result contrary thinkers who have the courage to buck the trend at its end receive the greatest profit.

Applying these insights from market psychology to the downtrend in the market for black law students, three observations can be made. First, African-Americans remain too bullish on law schools for the downtrend to end anytime soon. The feared downtrend is met with calls for redoubling minority-focused outreach and academic support programs. The assumption remains that more is better. Downtrends do not end when participants fight the trend. Downtrends in financial markets end when participants capitulate and discard the commodity or stock at all costs. The losses become too painful to bear.

Second, demoralization will set in as minority recruiters discover that they cannot fight resistance points. It's about psychology. In the financial markets, prices rebound up to the trend line only to be swamped by waves of selling. Demoralization sets in as the hopeful discover that the momentary correction was a lull before the continuation of the downtrend.

Imagine you are a Minority Affairs administrator. Your mission in life is to increase the numbers of black law students. In 1994, the future looked sunny and bright. The next year, things took a dip but you kept the faith. You remained hopeful. By 1998, you had gotten the numbers back up again, not as high as in 1994 but you convinced yourself that your hard work had made a difference. Now imagine your demoralization by 2005. The same thing happens in other markets for commodities and intangibles all the time. When participants become demoralized by resistance points at the downward sloping trend line, the downtrend is strengthened and prices collapse.

Finally, downtrends reward those who ride the trend. For whatever reason, the market for African-American law students is in decline. If more and more black law students viewed law school as a good thing, the numbers would be going up, not down. Wise African-Americans will use this time of a declining market to discover their real passions in life and cast their lot accordingly. The market rewards those who respect market trends.

Is a downtrend in the market for African-American law students unprecedented?

History tells us that there have been ebbs and flows in the market before. In Emancipation: The Making of the Black Lawyer 1844-1944 by J. Clay Smith, we can see a strong downtrend in the market for black law students between 1922 and 1936. These figures are based on the number of professional degrees granted African-Americans from Black and Northern Schools:

Notice the series of higher lows and lower lows. The market achieved a high in 1922, a lower high in 1926, a still lower high in 1929, and flat out cratered in 1936. The psychology of the 1936 market for black law students must have been bearish beyond belief.

The economic data says as much. While twenty-five percent of Americans were unemployed during the depths of the Great Depression, a whopping fifty-percent of African-Americans were unemployed. For young blacks just starting out, finding any job proved elusive. Ninety-eight percent of blacks in the age category 15-24 were looking for work.

Today black students should take these lessons to heart. There are good reasons to just say "no" to law schools. Those reasons are economic.

First, signing up for law school requires too much debt. Let's take Thurgood Marshall as an example. When Marshall graduated from Howard Law School in 1933, he had no student loan debt. He also had no clients. Life was a struggle for survival. As one black lawyer put it, "[n]obody had very much money and what little they did have they weren't going to spend on a lawyer." To occupy his time, Marshall made a game of trying to guess what sandwich his secretary would bring to work each day. If he guessed well, that small satisfaction would be the highlight of Marshall's day.

Even as late as the 1970s, student loans were virtually unheard of because federal grants covered 84 percent of a student's tuition. The current Chief Justice of the Virginia State Supreme Court, Leroy Hassell, graduated from Harvard Law School with around $5,000 of total student loan debt. When I left Harvard in 1986, my student debt burden was about $40,000 (principal plus interest).

Today African-American law students are saddled with outlandish debt upon graduation. Some blacks owe over $100,000 to both the federal government and private lenders at market rates. Accounts of freshly-minted black lawyers carrying nearly $200,000 in total debt can be found as well.

This level of debt for a ten-year period only makes financial sense if you have a high expectation of a high income. Some students even consolidate their loans, so that the repayment period lingers for 15 or 20 years. Can black law graduates expect a comfortable lifestyle under these circumstances?

For the vast majority of black law graduates, the answer is a resounding "no."

If you are devoted to public interest law and social justice, for example, one discovers that these jobs average starting salaries of $36,000 a year. The Thurgood Marshall-like jobs will not pay our students $135,000 a year, the going rate at the very top law firms.

What is life like for a law student with about $100,000 of student loan debt and a $36,000 a year job?

If you run the numbers, our hypothetical student will be grossing about $3,000 a month in income. After taxes, social security, and other withholdings are removed from his salary, our student should be taking home $2,000 a month net income. Then the fun begins. $1,000 a month will be paid back to student loan creditors, unless the student consolidates his loans and extends his repayment over 20 years. This crafty strategy might reduce his monthly net by 50 percent but the student will increase his total debt obligation by nearly 50 to 75 percent. Let's assume the student pays $750 a month for rent, although in a large city, monthly rents might approach $1,000 to $1,500.

These debts do not leave much room in our student's budget for car payments, clothes befitting an attorney's position, furniture befitting an attorney's apartment, or even the bare necessities like food.

To survive, the typical black law student with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt must work at a law firm. Unfortunately law firms require good grades. If the typical black law student has grades in the bottom tenth percentile of the class, the firms that pay the big bucks will not be knocking down his or her door.

Now, add into the mix the rabid desire of law schools to increase their rankings. To drop down in prestige is a very bad thing. You become less attractive to good law students. You become less attractive to great faculty. And you are less likely to attract the big firms to recruit at your school. The quickest way to boost rankings is to increase the average LSAT score for entering students. Such techniques are proving successful but they have a disparate impact on African-American applicants. Fewer and fewer black students are competitive as admissions standards rise out of institutional self-interest. This divergence of institutional interest and diversity efforts is a dirty little secret that no one wants to discuss. But the patterns are in place and they are accelerating the downtrend in the market for black law students.

Finally, even if our hypothetical student surmounts the hurdle of rising admission standards, throws caution to the wind and mortgages his future for the next ten years, and graduates with his class, he must pass the bar examination. As the economy becomes wobblier, bar examiners are lifting up the ladder for admission into the bar. Across the country bar exam rates are dropping. In California, perhaps only one-third of out-of-state attorneys pass the California attorneys bar exam. Even a less crowded state like Arizona has seen the bar passages rates decline from 81 percent in July 1997 to 65.1 percent in February 2006.

And remember-most black attorneys do not earn the lofty salaries at big law firms. Instead, the vast number of African-American lawyers land positions with the government where salaries hover at $62,000 on a starting basis. In other words, the typical black graduate with student loan debt over $100,0000 must live like a student for years. As a result, marriages are delayed. Children are delayed. And the prospect of buying a house is remote, if not out of reach.

If Harry S. Dent, Jr., the best selling market forecaster and Fortune 100 consultant, is correct in his economic forecast, we face a deflationary future. As the housing market continues to decline, people will feel less wealthy and have less home equity to bolster their spending. Around the year 2010, we should see a demographic tidal wave of baby boomers begin to remove their money from the economy as they retire in greater numbers. As the declining housing market continues and departing baby boomers slow economic growth, unemployment should increase with market demand lessening for goods and services.

The black law students who are now applying to law school will graduate in the Class of 2010. No one can forecast the future with certainty. But the market for black law students is sliding down a twelve-year downtrend for, most likely, economic reasons. Could the Class of 2010 students graduate into a severe economic slump where, rather than expanding, law firms would be scaling down to save themselves? And might grants to nonprofit, public interest employers dry up in a watershed downturn as well?

If we take lessons from the past we can see that waterfall drops in black student enrollment have followed boom times. Who in 1922 might have imagined the severe drop in black law graduates that followed for 14 long years? Might the future for the Class of 2010 be as grim?

Recent demand side efforts such as the American Bar Association's standard to condition law school accreditation on concrete results in recruiting blacks are misguided. The demographic and economic trends point towards times of economic distress ahead. African-Americans are already a poor people, possessing 9 cents in net worth for every $1 owned by white Americans. Why redouble efforts to saddle more black law students with suffocating debts as we approach the edge of an economic cliff?

Trends develop because market participants act upon expectations about the future. In the case of legal education, black students saw a bright future in becoming lawyers, particularly during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s when grants predominated over loans. As the economy recovered from the 1982 recession, the numbers of black law students gathered strength, cresting around the year 1994. Since 1994, black students have been recalculating the allure of a legal education and for good reason. Debt loads are increasing while public interest and government salaries have remained static. Out of self-interest, institutions are lifting the LSAT scores for admission, a move that strikes at the heart of a student community mired in the bottom tenth percentile of the class. And even if one survives these hurdles, ahead loom higher scores required to pass the bar examination.

While the competitive and those cut out for law practice will not be deferred, many black law students are uncompetitive at the front end. In a few years, the passionate debate about the need for law school diversity will be moot. Talk of diversity will seem ill-placed as private lending sources dry up and political interests are captured by a wave of retiring baby boomers. Like dominos falling in a child's game, these retirements will lessen the demand for corporate goods and services. As demand drops, lay-offs will commence. As the unemployment rate increases, fewer people will part with their hard-earned dollars. Demand for legal services will drop, thus adding to the angst of recently graduated students with hundreds of thousands of dollars in law school debt.

Under these circumstances, fear will develop and the idea of attending law school in a deflating economy will be a non-starter. Even the most die-hard minority recruiter cannot fight the force of economic deflation. If there are no black students to recruit because private and government loans are unavailable and government grants have run dry, law schools will themselves consolidate and downsize, leaving many minority recruiters out in the cold. Few black families will be positioned to pay in cash for a legal education during a deflationary period.

The mighty force of economic deflation will bring strong-armed diversity demands to an end. And the downtrend in the numbers of black law students will gather momentum.

What good can come out of this bearish future?

All markets cycle. Markets go through bullish and bearish trends. The market for black law students is no different. The year 2004 is roughly comparable to the year 1929 for African-American enrollment in law schools. We are passing the third peak, the third lower high of black law students in a downtrend. If I am correct, the years ahead and into the next decade will resemble the 1930s. We can already see pressures to raise standards and escalating financial costs producing a backlash among applicants. African-American males in particular are making other choices. Only 30 percent of the black law students at Harvard are male these days.

As the downtrend reaches its end, we will begin to see the silver lining. In the 1930s, black law professors were no nonsense. Teachers like Charles Houston, William Henry Hastie, George Marion Johnson, and Judge James Adlai Cobb worked hard to raise standards. And students like William Henry Hastie expected the highest standards of themselves. Hastie would serve on the law review at Harvard in 1930 and teach at Howard during the early 1930s. Thurgood Marshall graduated first in his class from Howard Law School in 1933. Oliver Hill graduated second in the same class.

Slackers did not survive. Only eight of the thirty-one first year students who entered with Marshall and Hill received a law degree. Both Marshall and Hill would prove pivotal to the Brown litigation effort. Marshall became the first African-American on the U.S. Supreme Court. Hill founded one of the oldest black law firms in American history. His firm, Hill, Tucker, and Marsh, continues to represent the interests of the black community as a new generation takes up the baton.

Judge Adlai Cobb taught law at Howard during the 1930s. Not only did he earn a fierce reputation for high standards in his classroom but he served as a model for engagement in the real world. President Calvin Coolidge nominated Cobb for the municipal court of the District of Columbia in 1926. From this position, Judge Cobb awakened black lawyers to the power of the bench. In 1930, for example, Judge Cobb ordered U.S. Senator Cole Blease of South Carolina to pay a $186 note to a South Carolina bank. Ten days after Judge Cobb's ruling, Senator Blease took to the floor of the Senate and railed against n____ judges. Cobb did not flinch. President Hoover reappointed Cobb to the bench and black law students saw the power of a law professor on the bench.

As the current downtrend continues, those passionate about and cut out for the law will continue to choose law school. These competitive students, like Hastie, Marshall, and Hill during the Great Depression, will choose law school regardless of the numbers. The black community needs more black lawyers passionate about the practice of law, not the making of money or status. And black law professors should loosen their grip on theoretical dessert like Critical Race Theory. Students will demand as much during hard times.

Of course, forecasters have been wrong before. Economists are known for speaking in terms of contingencies and probabilities. At best, market forecasting is rough guess work. But to his credit Dent displayed a keen eye in predicting the boom of the 1980s and the l990s.

Law schools must do more than take the money of black law students. Minority recruiters should provide a sober assessment of whether law school makes sense for individual students, a calculation that should take into consideration competitiveness, temperament, and financial risk. If law schools burden black law students with great debt at the edge of a foreseeable deflation, the damage to the black community will take years to repair. And the downtrend in black law students will become unstoppable until speculation in diversity is purged from the market. *

"Gratitude is a quality similar to electricity; it must be produced and discharged and used up in order to exist at all." --William Faulkner