In an interview on “Fox and Friends” this past week, former Department of Justice attorney J. Christian Adams referred to a study from The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). The study looked at voter turnout from 2008 to 2016. Adams said the study showed that voter ID laws had absolutely no negative impact on voters.

As a college professor, I learned to research the research. To that end I bought a copy of the research paper: Strict ID Laws Don’t Stop Voters: Evidence from a U.S. Nationwide Panel, 2008-2016. The authors are Enrico Cantoni from the Department of Economics at the University of Bologna (Italy) and Vincent Pons, a Faculty Research Fellow at Harvard Business School. The NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan research organization that sponsors empirical research in four areas of economics including the assessment of the effects of public policies on the U.S. economy. That explains why an organization that researches economics has an interest in voter ID laws.

For research to be “official” it needs to be published in a “refereed journal.” That means that the research has been examined by other researchers to make sure that the methods used in the research meet professional standards and that the results of the research support the conclusions drawn by the authors. This particular research paper has not yet been “refereed” so it is currently listed as a “working paper.” The research may be totally valid, but other researchers have not yet verified it. All that is to say that some people who don’t like the results of the research are sure to complain that it is unverified work and is therefore unreliable. However, since professional reputations rely on quality work, no researcher wants to present research that does not follow strict standards or that can be discounted when experts go over it in detail. So it’s fair to say that this is most likely reliable data.

There are a few statements in the paper that will certainly garner howls of protest from some liberals. The authors state that “the very existence of stricter controls at polling places could be perceived as an improvement in election administration and increase voter confidence” which would in turn increase voter turnout. And the comment that will generate the most outrage in liberals is “the fears that strict ID requirements would disenfranchise disadvantaged populations have not materialized.” So you can take the dire complaint that voter ID laws disenfranchise poor and minority voters and toss it out the window.

The researchers gave a little history of voter ID laws. They note that until late in the 1800s, “political parties took advantage of the lack of control over the identity of people coming to vote. They hired large groups of ‘repeaters,’ who walked from one polling place to another and voted over and over again.” Thus in the 1890s states began combating voter fraud by requiring citizens to prove they were who they said they were and to sign a register – and those signatures could be compared with voter signatures on file. Also, registrars frequently purged their roles of nonresidents and voters who had died. This all sounds familiar because we are still fighting these same voter integrity battles 125 years later.

The researchers draw the conclusion that voter turnout could be enhanced not by loosening voter ID requirements, but by increasing the number of polling places. This would put polling places closer to the voters – especially helpful in large rural precincts and for people who do not have transportation to the polls – and by reducing the amount of time people have to wait in line before they can vote. This means that if liberals want to reduce suppression of legal voters, they need to insist on more polling places, not on removing voter ID laws. Voter ID laws only suppress the vote of illegal voters – something that we need to suppress all the way to zero.

The authors point out that some voter ID laws have only recently been passed so their research does not address the long-term affects of voter ID laws. That is a valid point. But it is fair to say that based on this rather exhaustive research, voter ID laws are not hurting turnout among legal voters – although those laws hopefully put a big dent in illegal voting.

We know that many liberals won’t listen to facts if those facts don’t support their preconceived notions. But we at least have some rather convincing research here that we can use to counter their “voter suppression” hysteria. We certainly want legal voters to register and to vote. It’s the illegal voters that we oppose.

Cordially,
Steve “Doc” Troxel, Ph.D.

 

I doubt many people think that Virginia’s top three elected officials are doing a very good job of being leaders. But we need to take a look at exactly what leadership is before we can really put into words why we disapprove. John Maxwell is one of the most widely known gurus of leadership, and he notes five different levels of leadership.

The lowest level of leadership is POSITION. Maxwell calls it “the only level that requires no ability or effort to achieve.” I suppose you can say that a statewide campaign requires ability and effort, but ability as a campaigner is not the same thing as ability as a governor, lieutenant governor, or attorney general. The problem with “position” leaders is that they expect people to follow them just because of their title. At one time I worked for a man who had a title but little else. Most of the people in the department avoided him as much as possible and would not have followed him out of a burning building. So having a title means next to nothing if that’s all you have. Our top three statewide officials have titles, but….

The second level of leadership is PERMISSION. These people are leaders because people want to follow them. They have a relationship with the leader and they give that leader permission to lead them. This is where a leader builds trust that will help them reach higher levels of leadership. Our statewide leaders have certainly damaged a lot of people’s trust in them. One is a racist who apparently supports euthanasia, another apparently takes advantage of women who fear him, and the third, who is supposed to uphold the law for all people, has, by today’s standards belittled a quarter of the population of the state. At least he admitted to it.

The third level of leadership is PRODUCTION. This level is reserved for people who can get things done. Building a track record of success builds influence and credibility. Maxwell notes that this is the level “where leaders can become change agents. Work gets done, morale improves, profits go up, turnover goes down, and goals are achieved.” We all know that President Trump gets things done, and that has improved our morale. Unfortunately, the things our Virginia leaders have achieved hurts the morale of conservatives but strengthens our resolve. And at this point (without seeing the results of polls that Democrats are surely running to see whether it is in their best political interests to support or abandon the three) I dare say the morale of Democrats is also pretty low.

The fourth level of leadership is PEOPLE DEVELOPMENT, or as Maxwell sums it “reproduction.” At this level, the leader is creating and developing new leaders who will help get more of the organization’s mission accomplished. I don’t know about Virginia’s top three elected officials, but I do know there are some in the Republican Party who are trying to develop new leaders, and I know of others who try to keep potential leaders from becoming anything other than more accomplished followers. Yet if we developed enough conservatives to their fullest leadership potential, we would start winning more elections. But I guess for some people, their own position power and prestige is more important than training the people we need in order win elections for conservative candidates.

This brings us to the fifth level of leadership, the highest level, the PINNACLE. No one reaches this level by accident. To reach this level, leaders must intentionally invest their lives into the lives of others. The investment is huge, but so are the rewards. No one leader can do more than s/he can do. But a leader who builds other leaders who believe in the same things and have the same goals as the pinnacle leader will have an effect far beyond what one leader alone can do. So called leaders who want to keep all the glory for themselves will never reach this level of leadership. A leader who is excited to see that his/her goals are met and exceeded – regardless of who gets the credit – is the type of person who can achieve this level of leadership.

We need level five leaders in every level of government and in every level of politics. If you want to become a Pinnacle leader, then choose to follow a level five leader or at least choose a level five leader as a mentor. Don’t be afraid to ask. Level five leaders are looking for people who have what it takes to become level five leaders. After all, there is a limit to how many level five leaders one leader can develop. But if one level five leader produces five level five leaders, and each of those leaders produce five more level five leaders, and so on, then the multiplication begins, and the results expand exponentially.

Everyone leads someone. Some lead more people than others. Ask yourself at which level you want to be as you lead those who trust you enough to follow you.

Cordially,
Steve “Doc” Troxel, Ph.D.

Last week, Delegate Nick Freitas gave me a copy of a book by Henry Hazlitt, Economics in One Lesson: The Classic Explanation of How the World Works. Harper first published the book in 1946, but it was reprinted for the NINTH time in 2015, because Hazlitt does such a good job of explaining economics in simple terms.

Economics is not hard to understand – at least not the way Hazlitt explains it. He explains that economics is sometimes hard to understand because it is “haunted by more fallacies than any other study known to man.” He provides two reasons for this. The first is that some so-called experts develop economic ideas based on their own selfish interests. They present ideas that they want you to believe because if you go along with their ideas then they and their cohorts will personally benefit.

And people believe these ideas because economic opportunists generally can persuade people better than economic theorists who tend to get bogged down in explaining why the economy does and doesn’t work. Another reason people believe the opportunists is opportunists only tell part of the story. They tell enough to get people to believe that the opportunist does have a better idea. Unfortunately, it isn’t just the people who believe the opportunists who end up paying the cost of their folly. If the economic folly becomes law, we all pay for it. Just look at Venezuela.

The second reason Hazlitt gives is the “persistent tendency of men to see only the immediate effects of a given policy, or its effects only on a special group, and to neglect to inquire what the long-run effects of that policy will be not only on that special group but on all groups.” Bernie Sanders is a perfect example of this. He says the government should forgive all college debts. That sounds great to all those un- or under-employed college graduates who were brainwashed by their liberal professors into believing that all rich people are bad and should be deprived of their money. So the short-term result is great for college graduates. If they don’t have to repay their college loans, they can buy homes and start businesses.

But the long-term reality is that somebody has to pay for it. If banks are forced to forfeit the assets these loans represent, they will either go bankrupt or be forced by economic necessity to charge more for other loans, which will stifle the money supply, which means there will be fewer investment dollars to create jobs for college graduates, less money available to grant home mortgages, and much higher interest rates so that people can’t afford the interest on their mortgages if they do happen to get one. And if the government pays the loans, the government will have to raise taxes so high that there will be no money left to create jobs or sustain entrepreneurial businesses. It’s a lose-lose situation.

And those who think government jobs programs are good because those programs create new jobs don’t realize that  they are not really creating new jobs. They are creating different jobs. If you tax me an extra $300 this year to pay for the jobs program, then I’m not buying a new lawnmower. If consumers aren’t buying lawnmowers then manufacturers aren’t hiring people to build lawnmowers because there is no demand. There is no demand because consumers can’t afford lawnmowers. They can’t afford lawnmowers because the government is taxing consumers to pay for the jobs program. So the wasteful, unnecessary government jobs program is actually costing more jobs than it’s creating. But it does create power for elected officials and for government bureaucrats. That means it’s good for their selfish interests even if it’s bad for everyone else. And the long term effects of the program harm everyone because the short term benefits do not equate with the long term consequences of the opportunists’ ideas.

This is the problem with liberal economic policies. They look out for “favored” groups, and they fail to look at the long-term consequences faced by all groups because of those policies.

So when someone comes up with a new economic plan, always ask two questions. Who benefits? What are the long-term results? Only then can we tell whether it’s a good idea – or just another economic fallacy.

Cordially,
Steve “Doc” Troxel, Ph.D.

P.S. I was extremely proud of House of Delegates Majority Leader Todd Gilbert for his very sober and sound interview on “Fox and Friends” this week denouncing Democratic Delegate Kathy Tran’s HR 2491 bill that would allow a woman in Virginia to abort her baby up until the moment of birth and – according to Governor Northam – even after the birth of the child. You can find the interview at https://www.foxnews.com/politics/dem-co-sponsor-of-late-term-abortion-bill-apologizes-says-she-did-not-read-the-bill

While discussing the media’s vilification of the boys from Covington (KY) Catholic High School whose only crime was going to Washington, D.C., for the March for Life while wearing MAGA hats, a friend of mine mentioned that defamation of Christian morality is one step in the plan Communists have to takeover our country. I could not find a list of the steps he referenced. But I did find a list of 45 Communist goals that Congressman Albert Herlong, Jr., of Florida read into the Congressional Record on January 10, 1963. I looked at that list to determine how well Communists, Socialists, and their sympathizers have done in the 46 years since, and it’s not encouraging. Here are just a few of the items on the list.

7. Grant recognition of Red China and admission of Red China to the U.N. (Thanks to Democratic President Jimmy Carter, we lost that one.)

8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of (Soviet Premier Nikita) Khrushchev’s promise in 1955 to settle the Germany question by free elections under supervision of he U.N. (Thanks to Republican President Ronald Reagan, “Mr. Gorbachev” had to tear down that wall.)

11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. Demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (We are getting closer and closer to that all the time.)

15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the U.S. (Democratic Party, done. Republican Party, not looking good.)

17. Get control of the schools. Use them as a transmission belt for Socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers associations. Put the party line in textbooks. (Done.)

20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book review assignments, editorial writing, policy-making positions. (Done.)

22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all form of artistic expression. Eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings. (Starting with statues of historical figures in parks, we are losing this one.)

25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, etc. (Done.)

27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with “social religion.” Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for “intellectual maturity,” which does not need a “religious crutch.” (The Church needs to wake up soon or this battle is lost.)

28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the grounds that it violates the principle of “separation of church and state.” (Done.)

29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis. (Almost done.)

30. Discredit the American founding fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats. (Almost done.)

40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce. (Done.)

42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special interest groups should rise up and make a “united front” to solve economic, political or social problems. (Done.)

Makes you wonder what the rest of us have been doing while the socialists have been stealing our country. It isn’t a “done deal.” Not quite. Not yet. But it’s tough to win these battles when we don’t even recognize that we are in them.

Cordially,
Steve “Doc” Troxel, Ph.D.

P.S. You can read the entire list of goals for taking over our country at http://restoring-america.com/Documents/THE NAKED COMMUNIST GOALS WITH NOTES.pdf

The mainstream media is not going to advertise anything that is pro-gun rights – if they can help it. That could explain why so few people have heard about a study by Don Kates and Dr. Gary Mauser that was published a dozen years ago in the “Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy [Vol. 30. No.2, pp. 649-694].” Yes, THAT Harvard.

The title of the study is “Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide?” The short answer – spoiler alert – is that no, it doesn’t. That’s why, even though the study was published in 2007, almost no one has heard of it – except for a few gun-control fanatics who try to denigrate the study by saying the authors “misinterpreted the data.” They say that because the data doesn’t support the gun-control argument. Let me give you some examples.

On page 653 (the fifth page of the 46-page report) the authors say, “Indeed, ‘data on firearms ownership… in England,’ like data from the United States, show “a negativecorrelation,’ that is, ‘where firearms are most dense violent crime rates are lowest, and where guns are least dense violent crime rates are highest.”

On page 654 Kates and Mauser note, “In 2004, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences released its evaluation from a review of 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some original empirical research. It failed to identify any gun control that had reduced violent crime, suicide, or gun accidents.” They go on to note that during the year prior to the Academy of Sciences evaluation, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control following their own review of similar resources reached the same conclusion.

On page 658, the report states that allowing citizens to carry concealed handguns “has deterred criminals from confrontation crime and caused murder and violent crime to fall faster in states that adopted this policy than in states that did not.”

And the authors follow that up on page 659 with a statement that makes every gun-control proponent look foolish. “…[A]doption of state laws permitting millions of qualified citizens to carry guns has not resulted in more murder or violent crime in these states. Rather, adoption of these statutes has been followed by very significant reductions in murder and violence in these states.” And all of those statements are just in the Introduction.

Gun-control advocates don’t know how to process this report. They have to go to their safe spaces because in the absence of the critical thinking skills they were never taught in school, they can’t deal with information that doesn’t line up with the mantra that has been drummed into their heads by their liberal university professors.

Another reason that gun-control advocates won’t give up in the face of overwhelming evidence is that for them gun-control has never been about guns; it’s always been about control. It’s tough to take away the freedoms (control) of someone who is prepared to defend those freedoms from “all enemies both foreign and domestic.” If you remove the tools of defense, then it becomes easy.

If they disarm us, they can harm us. Look at Luxembourg, which bans handguns and allows very few other firearms yet has the second highest murder rate in Europe – over four times that of Hungary, the country with the third highest murder rate. The country with the highest murder rate is Russia, which has had incredibly tight gun control for years. They came in at over twice the murder rate of even Luxembourg. So it isn’t an American phenomenon, it’s a human phenomenon. If the cowards who would attack someone realize they might get badly hurt doing so, then those cowards are less likely to run that risk, thus fewer crimes happen.

I can see value in the arguments people make to disarm criminals, but you won’t do it by passing laws. Criminals are criminals – by definition – because they don’t obey laws. You won’t lower crime by disarming people who do obey the laws. You just create more defenseless victims.

Cordially,
Steve “Doc” Troxel, Ph.D.

P.S. Seven Republican state senators just voted in favor of abortion by voting to adopt the Equal Rights amendment. If you are not paying attention, then it’s no wonder they get away with treachery like that. Steve Newman, Mark Obenshain, Mark Peake, and David Suetterlein (along with ten other Republicans) voted against the bill – as any real Republican should. I challenge you to find out which Republicans voted in favor of it. Then ask yourself why we continue to elect so-called Republicans who just vote like Democrats once they get into office.