January 29, 2016 by The Sumter Item

THE SUMTER ITEM N.G. Osteen 1843-1936 The Watchman and Southron

FRIDAY, JANUARY 29, 2016 H.G. Osteen 1870-1955 Founder, The Item

H.D. Osteen 1904-1987 The Item

Margaret W. Osteen 1908-1996 The Item Hubert D. Osteen Jr. Chairman & Editor-in-Chief Graham Osteen Co-President Kyle Osteen Co-President Jack Osteen Editor and Publisher Larry Miller CEO Rick Carpenter Managing Editor

20 N. Magnolia St., Sumter, South Carolina 29150 • Founded October 15, 1894

COMMENTARY

The three-cornered fight for the soul of the GOP

ASHINGTON — It’s hard to believe that the United States, having resisted the siren song of socialism during its entire 20th-century heyday (the only major democracy to do so), should suddenly succumb to its charms a generation after its intellectual demise. Indeed, the prospect of socialist Bernie Sanders, whatever CHARLES his current Krauthammer momentum, winning the Democratic nomination remains farfetched. The Dems would be risking a November electoral disaster of historic dimensions. Yet there is no denying how far Sanders has pulled his party to the left -- and how hard the establishment candidate, Hillary Clinton, has been racing to catch up. The Republicans, on the other hand, are dealing with a full-scale riot. The temptation they face is trading in a century of conservatism for Trumpism. The 2016 presidential race has turned into an epic contest between the ethno-nationalist populism of Donald Trump and traditional conservatism, though in two varieties: the scorched-earth fundamentalist version of Ted Cruz, and a reformist version represented by Marco Rubio (and several socalled establishment candidates) -and articulated most fully by non-candidate Paul Ryan and a cluster of highly productive thinkers and policy wonks dubbed “reformicons.” Trump insists that he’s a conservative, but in his pronouncements and policies, conservatism seems more of a rental -- a three-story penthouse rental with Central Park-view, to be sure -- than an ideological home. Trump protests that Ronald Reagan, too, migrated from left to right. True, but Reagan’s transformation occurred in his 40s — not, as with Trump, in his 60s. In radically different ways, Trump and Sanders are addressing the deep anxiety stemming from the secular stagnation in wages and living standards that has squeezed the middle and working classes for a generation. Sanders locates the villainy in a billionaire class that has rigged both the economic and political system. Trump blames foreigners, most prominently those cunning Mexicans, Chinese, Japanese and Saudis who’ve been taking merciless advantage of us, in concert with America’s own leaders who are, alternatively, stupid and incompetent or bought and corrupt. Hence Trump’s most famous policy recommendations: anti-immigrant, including the forced deportation of 11 million people; anti-trade, with a 45 percent tariff on Chinese goods and a 35 per-

cent tariff on U.S. manufacturing moved to Mexico; and anti-Muslim, most notoriously a complete ban on entry into the U.S. Temporarily only, we are assured, except that the ban applies “until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on” -- a standard so indeterminate as to be meaningless. Trump has limited concern for the central tenet of American conservatism (and most especially of the tea party movement) — limited government. The most telling example is his wholehearted support for “eminent domain,” i.e. the forcible appropriation by government of private property. Trump called it “wonderful.” Trump has not yet called Vladimir Putin wonderful but he has taken a shine to the swaggering mini-czar who seems to run his trains on time. When informed that Putin kills opponents and journalists, Trump’s initial reaction was, “Well, I think that our country does plenty of killing, also,” the kind of moronic what-about-the-Crusades moral equivalence that conservatives have railed against for decades. Although, to be fair, after some prompting, Trump did come out against the killing of journalists. Cruz is often lumped with Trump in the “anti-establishment” camp. That suited Cruz tactically for a while, but it’s fairly meaningless, given that “establishment” can mean anything these days. And given the huge gulf between the political philosophies of the two men. Cruz is a genuine conservative — austere, indeed radical, so much so that he considers mainstream congressional conservatives apostates. And finds Trump not conservative at all, as he is now furiously, belatedly insisting. My personal preference is for the third ideological alternative, the reform conservatism that locates the source of our problems not in heartless billionaires or crafty foreigners, but in our superannuated, increasingly sclerotic 20thcentury welfare-state structures. Their desperate need for reform has been overshadowed by the new populism, but will make its appearance this year in Congress in Speaker Ryan’s promised agenda — boring stuff like welfare reform, health care reform, tax reform and institutional congressional reforms such as the return to “regular order.” Paired with a President like Rubio (or Chris Christie or Carly Fiorina, to go long-shot), such an agenda would give conservatism its best opportunity since Reagan to become the country’s governing philosophy. Unless the GOP takes the populist leap. In which case, a conservative restoration will be a long time coming.

‘In radically different ways, Trump and Sanders are addressing the deep anxiety stemming from the secular stagnation in wages and living standards that has squeezed the middle and working classes for a generation.’

Should journalism be regulated? Jay Bender’s commentary below is in response to the events outlined in this news article by Cynthia Roldan of the Charleston Post and Courier: COLUMBIA — The Upstate lawmaker who introduced a bill calling for a registry of journalists said he was aiming to “educate the populace” of slanted and biased reports in the media. Rep. Mike Pitts, R-Laurens, held a press conference Tuesday, a week after his introduction of the “South Carolina Responsible Journalism Registry Law” went viral. The bill used the framework of the state’s concealed weapons permit requirement and a journalist code of ethics to create requirements for people wanting to work for a

media outlet. Pitts said he filed the measure in response to no particular article or report. He just felt that too many stories get watered down to sound bites or to bullet points, leaving out the facts and background that explain the rationale behind lawmaker actions. Pitts, an ardent Second Amendment supporter, argued that the press as a whole had not responded with what he felt was the right amount of indignation to President Obama’s executive orders aimed at restricting gun access. He countered that when the threat to the First Amendment was imminent, the response was swift. “The press readily defended, (and) brought your swords out when you thought

COMMENTARY

confess. I had more fun responding to inquiries about Mike Pitts’ (R-Laurens) journalist registration bill than I have had answering questions about any other proposed restrictions on the press or personal freedoms. A client called and asked what the response to the bill should be. I responded, “laughter.” The client then asked, “What do we say when someone wants our official response?” “Tell them when we quit laughing we’ll think of something.” Unfortunately, many news organizations Jay groaned and harrumphed Bender like the sea lions on the beach in front of William Randolph Hearst’s castle in California. A reaction I suspect Pitts desired. If he were honest, and I have no way of knowing, Pitts would have known that his bill had very little chance of getting even subcommittee consideration and no chance of passage. Of course Pitts’ explanation for filing the bill was as humorous as the bill itself: unhappiness with press coverage of firearms legislation. If Pitts really had a complaint about news coverage of firearms legislation, as distinguished from editorial and opinion treatment of the issue, he could have responded on the merits of specific proposals. With respect to editorials and opinion pieces, I am confident most newspapers would have welcomed a piece from Pitts addressing specific legislative proposals regarding such things as closing the “gun show loophole” where one can buy a firearm without a background check, or methods to get mental health information into the background check databases. But, because he is a member of the General Assembly, with lawyers and typists at his disposal at state expense, Pitts decided to demonstrate how powerful he is. He used public resources to take the language of the state’s concealed weapons law and modify it to require the registration of journalists. I am guessing that if Pitts had been required to draft the bill himself rather than use the professional staff, he might have decided it would be a better use of his time to take a hunting trip to Alaska (which he has done apparently using his campaign treasury to finance the trip). Some have suggested that Pitts’ registration bill has less to do with his unhappiness with firearms legislation coverage and more to do

there was going to be a challenge to the First Amendment,” Pitts said. “The one that you will defend without bias is when it focused on you.” Various media representatives and legal scholars have condemned the offering as both an unconstitutional infringement on freedom of the press and an unwarranted attempt to push Pitts’ personal beliefs in the legislative process. He added that he did not consider educating the public as a waste of time, and that if he wanted to, he’d ask for the bill to be debated in committee. But with so many priority bills in the cue and a crowded Senate calendar, Pitts acknowledged he didn’t think his bill had a chance of passing this year.

with The Post & Courier report on his use of campaign funds to underwrite hunting trips. Pitts is not alone in promoting legislation to burden the press for fulfilling the role of the press in our democratic society. Every year someone in the General Assembly proposes to remove the sales tax exemption on newspapers and newsprint — exemptions that have been in the law since South Carolina’s initial sales tax legislation was adopted. And a historical note, the imposition of a tax on newspapers and newspaper readers by the Crown was one of the rallying points for colonists in the days leading to the American Revolution. The exemption repeal usually pops up after a newspaper has disclosed questionable or illegal conduct by a public official. Louisiana and Minnesota both enacted tax schemes that imposed taxes on the largest newspapers in those states — the papers most likely to write about governmental corruption. The Louisiana legislature didn’t even try to hide the fact that the tax was being imposed on those newspapers critical of Huey Long. The United States Supreme Court ruled both schemes unconstitutional. Minnesota also had a statute that allowed a court to issue an injunction to stop the publication of a newspaper deemed to be a “nuisance” on the basis of what it published about government and government officials. The concept of nuisance in common law allows a court to enjoin an activity when noise, odors or light from an activity on one person’s property interferes with the use of an adjoining property. Minnesota, like Pitts, was trying to be clever in taking law that dealt with one subject and modify it to enable a court to punish a newspaper for publishing that which a public official found offensive. This is not a new notion. During the administration of John Adams, Congress enacted a Sedition Act to allow the imprisonment of publishers who criticized government and government officials. The notion of sedition was imported from England where one could be put to death in a gruesome fashion for criticizing the monarch. Those punished under the act were supporters of Thomas Jefferson. When Jefferson became President he pardoned those who had been imprisoned and the law expired. Certainly Pitts was throwing his weight around and acting the bully with his pretend (I hope) legislation, but he is to be applauded for causing us to think about why we have the First Amendment. I tell my classes that the First Amendment exists to protect from the government speech that nobody likes. Even if the nobody is in the General Assembly. Jay Bender is an attorney for South Carolina Press Association.