Mountain Views News          Saturday, February 6, 2016

15

OPINION

 Mountain Views News Saturday, February 6, 2016 

TOM Purcell

TINA Dupuy

Mountain 
Views

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Pat Birdsall (retired)


IMMORAL GIRL 

SCOUT COOKIES

NO RUBIO, RIGHTS 

ARE MAN-MADE

The Girl Scout cookie season is upon us — which means 
people with nothing better to do will criticize Girl Scout 
cookies. 

 According to the International Business Times, 
one critic, a professor of medicine and public health at 
the University of Arizona, says it makes no sense for the Girl Scouts to “sell 
something so unhealthy.” 

 She told IBT there is a disconnect between the sugary, fatty cookies the scouts 
sell and the organization’s mission of “building girls of courage, confidence and 
character who make the world a better place” Hey, if you don’t think Girl Scout 
cookies make the world a better place, try dipping a sleeve of Lorna Doones into 
a pitcher of ice-cold milk. 

 Look, the Girl Scouts organization was founded in 1912 to help girls develop 
physically, mentally and spiritually. Its annual cookie sale has become a tasty 
part of American culture since it originated in 1917 — well before something as 
innocuous as a cookie could cause so much angst. 

 True, America is awash in high-calorie, high-sugar processed foods that the 
human body can efficiently convert into fat. 

 It’s also true that human beings must educate themselves on what is and isn’t 
good for our health in order to reverse the high levels of diabetes and heart 
disease in America. 

 But Girl Scout cookies are still just cookies — an occasional treat. 

 Vani Hari, a food critic and founder of the blog FoodBabe.com, doesn’t see 
it that way. One of her blogs blasted the high-fructose corn syrup and partially 
hydrogenated oils found in some of the cookies. 

 She writes: “It’s important for the Girl Scouts organization to take a step back, 
look at these ingredients and say, ‘How can we continue to do this program in a 
way that’s morally sound?’” 

 Hey, people starving across the world is morally unsound. Millions of 
American kids who leave high school unable to read is morally unsound. 
Terrorists who murder women and children for going to the wrong church is 
morally unsound. 

 Yet we’re worried about the immorality of cookies? 

 Apparently so. IBT reports that in 2014, “an NPR piece rounded up a slew of 
concerns from doctors and parents and ended with the question, ‘Should the 
Girl Scouts find something more healthful to sell for their fundraising?’” How 
about tofu treats or low-energy-consumption light bulbs? 

 Then again, why are we letting the Girl Scouts sell anything at all? Instead 
of teaching the girls the principles of capitalism, why not teach them the art 
of government bureaucracy? As America keeps moving toward European-style 
socialism, that’s where most of the jobs will be, anyhow. 

 Hey, cookie shamers, Americans are making progress. They are finally 
beginning to read labels, eat better and understand what is and isn’t healthful. 
McDonald’s sales are slumping as healthier offerings are growing. 

 Besides, a cookie is now what it has always been: a treat. If Girl Scout cookies 
are your primary source of calories for breakfast, lunch and dinner, you have 
bigger problems than Girl Scout cookies. 

When IBT asked the Girl Scouts if it contributes to childhood obesity, the 
organization said it promotes a “healthy lifestyle for girls, which includes a 
well-balanced diet and plenty of exercise.” It said Girl Scout cookies “should be 
enjoyed in moderation.” 

 Now there’s a thought. 

 The country is on the verge of $20 trillion in debt, the Middle East is melting 
down, entitlement spending is about to explode and Girl Scout cookies are the 
great moral issue of our time. 

 I think I need to mull that one over — as I consume several sleeves of Thin 
Mints and wash them down with a bucket of fresh milk. 

 Tom Purcell is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review humor columnist

The Iowa caucus brings out the evangelical 
in all Republican candidates. After all, 
previous winners include Mike Huckabee 
and Rick Santorum, two candidates who 
exclusively appealed to evangelical voters 
(and pretty much no one else). In Iowa, 
the most devout and outwardly preachy 
Republicans get the nod. Donald Trump 
mistakenly thought making up bible verses 
and quoting “two Corinthians” at Liberty 
University would be a sufficient religious 
test for the Hawkeye State. It clearly wasn’t 
- he came in “two.”

 Marco Rubio, who won the night by 
coming in third, has been offering on the 
stump, “America was founded on this 
powerful principle that our rights don’t 
come from government our rights come 
from god.” Ted Cruz, the official winner of 
the Iowa caucus this election cycle, repeated 
this idea in his victory speech Monday. 
“That our rights do not come from the 
Democratic Party or the Republican Party 
or even from the tea party. Our rights come 
from our creator,” the first-term Texas 
Senator said.

 It’s like saying our roads don’t come from 
our tax dollars but from god, or that bridges 
aren’t because of engineers they’re from 
Jehovah—or space travel isn’t made possible 
by science and math but by a higher power.

 Sure, if you believe god is everything, 
then yes, those statements can be technically 
true for you. But when it comes to rights, 
it’s not some magical mystical nebulous 
force which gifted us liberty. Rights are 
something for which humans have fought, 
struggled and died. Rights are liberties 
people have demanded and governments 
have acquiesced. Saying rights are just given 
to us because an omnipotent force wills 
it, robs all the notables who’ve laid down 
their lives to ensure the rest of us can enjoy 
personal freedoms.

 Over 50,000 people posthumously 
dubbed Americans died in the Revolutionary 
War. Those men fought for our right to 
self-rule. This isn’t a biblical principle. The 
governments in the bible are composed 
of kings and subjects—not democracies! 
Obedience is a biblical principle; America 
was founded by rebels who rejected an 
indifferent monarch.

 There were 620,000 Americans who 
died in the Civil War—a war about 
human rights—one side killing and 
dying to keep their fellow humans as 
property, the other side killing and 
dying to liberate them. Telling a crowd 
of Iowa caucus-goers god just amended 
our Constitution so that African 
Americans were no longer three-fifths a 
person—giving them “amnesty” and full 
citizenship mocks 
the blood-soaked 
struggle our 
ancestors waged. 
It sanitizes the 
brutality of 
American history with pithy pandering.

 Suffragettes were arrested and tortured in 
a battle for the vote that spanned a century. 
That right was not just bestowed upon the 
gender the bible views as servants to men. 
Civil Rights were not just passively given to 
people in the segregated South. There were 
activists—champions and casualties. There 
were brave men and women subjected to 
fire hoses, German Shepherds and batons 
(or worse). They were kicked down yet they 
stood back up and demanded their rights 
again. And again. And again. (And still.)

 But the worst part of Rubio and Cruz 
offering this boilerplate baloney is they’re 
saying god gave us our rights while hoping 
to take away rights from their fellow (at 
least in the case of Rubio) Americans. 
They both want to take away the right to 
marry whomever you choose—a right 
fought for by courageous regular people 
ostracized by their government and fellow 
citizens because of their sexuality. They 
both want to make women into public 
incubators, making health-care decisions 
for them—infantilizing a huge swath of the 
American electorate. Both oppose equal 
pay for women. They each want to repeal 
Obamacare which has in it the right to not 
be turned down by your health insurance 
for a pre-existing condition.

 And before you tell yourself these men 
are really just for, as they claim, religious 
liberty, they are not. They both have 
expressed contempt for religions that are 
not their own, specifically Islam. Rubio 
wants to shutter mosques and “any facility 
that’s being used to radicalize and inspire 
attacks against the United States, should be a 
place that we look at,” he said on “The Kelly 
File.” Cruz wants to deny Muslim refugees 
sanctuary because their faith. So if you’re 
for your freedom but not for someone 
else’s—you’re not for freedom. You’re for 
subordination. Full stop.

 Don’t take the credit away from those 
who’ve died for our rights. All of our 
liberties are stained with blood. And all of 
our liberties have been opposed by men 
like Rubio and Cruz—men who use faith 
for obfuscation, camouflaging a backwards 
agenda.

Tina Dupuy is a nationally syndicated 
columnist and host of the podcast, Cultish. 
Tina can be reached at tinadupuy@yahoo.
com.

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LEFT TURN/RIGHT TURN 

MAKING SENSE

MICHAEL Reagan

HOWARD Hays As I See It


“Seriously? 
Seriously?!”

- Comedian Lewis 
Black, on his reaction 
upon reading the front 
page of the morning 
papers.

 In my columns 
I’ve sought to take 
serious issues and 
address them (for the 
most part) seriously. 
Sometimes, though, like especially over these 
past couple of weeks, I can relate to Lewis 
Black’s reaction to the news of the day. 

 I had that reaction reading Michael 
Reagan’s column on this page a few weeks ago, 
about how President Obama’s problem was 
his being unable/unwilling to compromise 
with the opposition. He cited as an example 
the Affordable Care Act. Seriously? This was 
the bill that, after being enacted with some 
160 Republican amendments, later had 
Republicans whining about having been “shut 
out” of the process. It was the one where the 
likes of Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) would 
call for bipartisanship, then go out on the 
stump to complain it was all about “pulling the 
plug on grandma”.

 Columnist Reagan cited his father’s ability to 
compromise with the Democratic opposition, 
but this was when the opposition wasn’t 
terrified of compromise with the White House 
– and I don’t recall Democrats threatening to 
shut down the government if they didn’t get 
their way.

 As Doyle McManus wrote in the Times, the 
major attack Republican candidate Sen. Ted 
Cruz (TX) wages against Sen. Marco Rubio 
(R-FL) is that he commits the “inexplicable 
sin” of “collaboration with President Obama 
and (N.Y. Sen.) Chuck Schumer”. Seriously? 

 Leading up to the Iowa caucuses, the big 
exchange between Republican frontrunners 
was Donald Trump claiming supporters would 
stick with him even if he shot somebody on 
Fifth Avenue, with Cruz responding on CNN 
that he himself had no intention of shooting 
anybody. Seriously?

 Michigan Atty. Gen. Bill Schuette (R) named 
former prosecutor Todd Flood to head an 
investigation into the Flint water crisis. Flood 
has contributed thousands to the campaigns of 
both Schuette and Gov. Rick Snyder (R) over 
the past six years, but vows the investigation 
would be “impartial”. Seriously? Meanwhile, 
Gov. Snyder on Fox News blames the problem 
on regulators being too “technical”.

 Flint residents are still being charged 
exorbitant water bills – up to $200-$300 a 
month - for water they can’t drink, cook 
with or bathe in. And if they don’t pay up, 
there’s the risk of having their water shut off, 
sewers capped, homes condemned and kids 
taken away by protective services (you can’t 
have kids in homes without running water). 
Seriously?

 Oklahoma had its own crisis requiring 
“emergency” legislation; this to block funding 
for A.P. American History courses in public 
schools. The problem is too much of “what is 
bad about America”, and not enough of the 
“Christian perspective”. Some want to take 
it further and ban all college-prep Advanced 
Placement courses – fearing it’s related to 
some “national curriculum”. Seriously?

 An anti-choice Republican governor 
in Texas has his anti-choice Republican 
attorney general have a Republican prosecutor 
(appointed by former anti-choice Republican 
Gov. Rick Perry) head up (still another) 
investigation into those Planned Parenthood 
videos. A two-month investigation cleared 
Planned Parenthood, but led to grand jury 
indictments of two who made the videos. 
Megyn Kelly on Fox News asked if this 
outcome didn’t “sound like a political hit job”. 
Seriously?

 Aside from Texas, eleven other states have 
investigated and cleared Planned Parenthood 
of any wrongdoing. An additional eight states 
found there wasn’t enough evidence to launch 
investigations in the first place. But candidate 
Rubio insists Planned Parenthood “actually” 
did what nobody’s found any evidence of them 
doing. And the Texas attorney general vows 
investigations will go on, anyway. Seriously?

 We remember Tamir Rice. He was the 
12-year-old kid sitting on a swing who was 
shot and killed by Cleveland police within 
two seconds after they arrived on a call about 
somebody with a gun “probably fake” (it was a 
toy pellet gun). Then there’s LaVoy Finicum, 
one of the armed wingnuts who’d been 
“occupying” that cabin in an Oregon federal 
wildlife refuge for more than three weeks. He 
liked to be in front of the cameras with real 
guns, vowing never to be taken to a jail cell.

 Two carloads of those wingnuts were 
headed to a meeting; the first was stopped 
at a roadblock and the occupants arrested. 
The second, with Finicum, sped around the 
roadblock and plowed into a snowbank. 
Aerial footage shows Finicum shot and killed 
as he reached into his jacket where he had a 
gun with real bullets. One of the remaining 
occupiers compared Finicum’s death to that of 
Tamir Rice. Seriously?

 Eight years ago, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) 
spoke in Iowa; “They said this day would never 
come. They said our sights were set too high.” 
Last Monday, Marco Rubio spoke in Iowa; 
“So this is the moment they said would never 
happen . . . for months they told us we had no 
chance.” Obama spoke after winning the Iowa 
caucuses, coming in ahead of Hillary Clinton 
and John Edwards. Rubio spoke after finishing 
third, behind Ted Cruz and Donald Trump.

 Polls from mid-December saw Rubio 
coming in no higher than third place in Iowa. 
Rubio (and much of the media) see him now 
as entitled to proclaim an upset victory – 
for coming in no higher than third place in 
Iowa. Rubio denies climate change, opposes 
marriage equality, supports voter suppression 
efforts, denial of abortion in cases of rape and 
incest, supports employers’ “right” to deny 
birth control coverage to employees and 
wants to bomb Iran –yet is regarded as an 
“establishment” candidate. Seriously?

 There was another poll last Monday you 
may have missed. Kim Kardashian invited 
Twitter followers to vote on what they thought 
the title of hubby Kanye’s new album should 
be. She got about 440,000 responses. This was 
roughly twenty thousand more votes than 
were cast in the Iowa caucuses – Democratic 
and Republican contests combined.

Seriously.

THE GOP DID 

GOOD IN IOWA


I don’t know how the primaries will 
turn out in New Hampshire next week.

 But I was glad to see Republican 
voters in Iowa prick some of the air out 
of the Trump balloon Monday night 
and lift Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio to 
the top of the GOP heap.

 All Iowans didn’t get caught up in 
the Trump celebrity or go goofy for the 
Trump plane.

 A lot of them looked at the Donald’s 
political substance -- and realized he 
didn’t have any. Not in politics, anyway.

 Going forward, however, 
conservatives still have the same 
problem they’ve had for months. Too 
many good horses clogging up the 
race.

 They need to find their best horse 
quickly and ride it. Otherwise, they’ll 
split the conservative vote again and 
give the nomination to a moderate or a 
fake Republican like Trump who won’t 
win in the fall.

 It happened with John McCain in 
2008 and again with Mitt Romney in 
2012. Too many conservatives in the 
race splintered the conservative vote.

 There were 12 Republicans still 
trying to win the nomination in 
Iowa. Eleven of them were virtually 
interchangeable conservatives. One 
was a billionaire pretending to be one.

 Even with Mike Huckabee, Rand 
Paul and Rick Santorum dropping out, 
there are still way too many candidates 
splitting up the conservative vote. 

 Ben Carson should be next. And 
what’s Jim Gilmore waiting for? Where 
did he come from anyway? And why?

 The ex-Virginia Governor got a 
whopping 12 votes from Iowa caucus-
goers — .01 percent. That has to be a 
Guinness world record for last place 
in any election. “Other” was chosen by 
119 people.

 Still, the results in Iowa were 
encouraging for the Republican Party. 
If I had to pick a single big winner, I 
guess it has to be Cruz.

 Congratulations to him. He’s good. 
He’s great. But at the end of Monday 
night, I think Rubio shined brightest.

 He finished a close third to Cruz, 
plus he gave a great speech after the 
caucus while Cruz’s speech was too 
long, too religious and too awful.

 Rubio gave the most Reaganesque 
talk. He spoke 
to everyone, 
while Cruz 
spoke – and 
spoke -- to 
evangelicals.

 Let’s put it this way. If Cruz had been 
on the old “Gong Show,” he’d have been 
gonged and yanked from the stage.

 I understand why the three 
governors – Bush, Christie and Kasich, 
who collectively didn’t get 8 percent of 
the vote in Iowa -- want to stay around 
for New Hampshire. It’s their last shot.

But if they really want to help the 
conservatives, it’s time for some of 
those guys to go home too.

 The goal of this primary race is to 
win back the White House. To do that 
Republicans need a message that’s 
inclusive and welcoming to minorities.

Iowa, in case you didn’t notice, the 
Republicans are no longer the party of 
angry old white men.

 About 65 percent of caucus votes 
went to Cruz, Rubio and Carson -- 
Republicans who, last time I looked, 
are Latino or black.

 Compare that with the Democrats, 
who like to pass themselves off as the 
all-inclusive party that speaks for 
minorities.

 Now that that 53-year-old 
whippersnapper Martin O’Malley 
has dropped out of their primary, 
Democrats literally have an old white 
guy trying to beat out an old white gal.

 It wouldn’t hurt if once in a while the 
mainstream news media pointed out 
the irony of the Democrats running 
two old fogies for president whose 
leftist policies were discredited in the 
last century.

 Meanwhile, the Republicans’ 
diversity is a huge plus. It needs to be 
publicized and applauded from the 
rooftops by the GOP.

 Based on what happened in Iowa, 
the Party of Ronald Reagan looks like it 
might have a conservative future after 
all. It’ll just have a different hue.

 

 Michael Reagan is the son of 
President Ronald Reagan, a political 
consultant, and the author of “The New 
Reagan Revolution” (St. Martin’s Press).

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