Letters to the editor

OPINION:

O’Malley committed to clean energy

On May 3, an article in The Washington Times asserted that Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley’s decision to ban commercial wind development in state parks and forests meant that he was “rejecting” wind as a potential renewable energy source for Maryland (“Wind power debate whips up controversy”).

Such a proposition is simply not true. In fact, Mr. O’Malley has led Maryland to be one of the most aggressive “clean energy” states.

Most recently, Mr. O’Malley successfully championed a new law that more than doubles the amount of renewable energy that must be purchased by Maryland’s electric companies, reaching 20 percent by 2022. Since such power could be generated anywhere in the 14 states that are part of Maryland’s electricity grid, Maryland consumers can benefit from the most affordable renewable power in the region.

In addition, the Maryland Energy Administration (MEA) has made considerable strides to promote wind and other renewable energies. Through the governor’s Clean Energy Schools initiative, Maryland installed its first demo-scale wind project at Crisfield High School in Somerset County, providing a great venue to educate students and offset a portion of the school’s energy bills. MEA’s Windswept Grant Program provides grants to rural homeowners to promote residential wind, and the program also loans wind anemometers to Marylanders interested in evaluating their wind resources. Because of these incentives, small-scale wind power has doubled in the last six months. (For more information on wind energy and MEA’s Wind Program, visit www.energy.maryland.gov)

As the governor aims to address Maryland’s serious environmental and energy challenges, a balance must be made in protecting public parks and forests while still promoting the development of commercial wind power on privately owned lands. Maryland strives to do just that.

MALCOLM WOOLF

Director

Maryland Energy Administration

Annapolis

The culprit: statism

The Washington Times quoted Newt Gingrich on Monday as saying former Rep. Bob Barr “will make it marginally easier for Barack Obama to become president. That outcome threatens every libertarian value Barr professes to champion” (“GOP pressures Barr not to run,” Nation).

Mr. Gingrich doesn’t openly say whether he thinks libertarian values are good or not, but he does say Mr. Obama threatens them. Can we assume that because he’s against Mr. Obama, he’s for libertarian values? Why would votes going to a libertarian put libertarian values at risk? Why do we need a Libertarian Party anyway? Don’t conservatives want small government too?

I’m not sure. Republican preoccupations were summarized recently by National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Cole: “What we’ve got is a deficiency in our message and a loss of confidence in the American people that we will do what we say we’re going to do.” He apparently doesn’t realize that these two problems contradict each other. There wouldn’t be a problem with the “message” if Republicans were to keep their word and act on it.

Mr. Gingrich must realize that the GOP’s problem is the same it has been for decades: a lack of concrete action to match their libertarian message. It is that failure that really threatens the libertarian values on which this country was founded, not the defection of Mr. Barr from the thundering herd.

There is little point in democracy unless we vote affirmatively for what we believe. Once we are voting for the “lesser of two evils” or to “stop someone” from becoming president, we have succumbed to the politics of fear. Mr. Gingrich wants us to fear the anti-libertarianism that we hate so much that we forsake the libertarian values that we love. That to me is perverse like throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Indeed, the Republican Party certainly has forsaken libertarianism, and Mr. Gingrich wants to make sure everyone knows the script. In the meantime, with libertarianism relegated to slogans, what have our two parties wrought with their “bipartisan” blend of “progressive” and “conservative” politics? Where has the “mainstream” carried us? The answer is to “A battered society” so eloquently described by Louis Rene Beres in his Op-Ed column on Tuesday.

Mr. Beres lists many real problems, and his complaints should raise questions. He says we’re a “broken land.” Well, what broke us? He speaks of ailing airports, hospitals, schools, streets and jails, again without looking for a common cause. He talks of how our economy is consumption-based and “built on sand.” True, but why? We have lost our individuality and lack “national cohesion,” too. True again, but how did it happen? Can we undo it?

Mr. Beres doubts that any president could halt the “corrosive withering of heart, body, and mind” that diminishes us. He also says only a rare few can ever redeem America, and these quiet, self-effacing souls remain hidden. Not always. Ironically, the very media that provide Mr. Beres (and me) a voice has filtered out just such a self-effacing soul from the news cycle and thus hindered him from becoming a viable candidate in this election.

His name is Ron Paul. He would tell Mr. Beres that a consumption-based economy is the inevitable result of a fiat currency and that sound money would solve the problem. Hospitals and doctors are overregulated and protected by government, as are airports, schools and jails. No drug war no jail problem. Progressive taxation and government programs both place people into classes and pit them against one another. Eliminate these things and unity will return. Nothing can unify two completely different people quicker than paying the same tax rate.

I could go on, but Mr. Gingrich, Mr. Beres and everybody else can just hear me now and listen to me later: Every negative trend in this country can be traced back to one thing statism. There are just two dominant forces in human political affairs statism and freedom. All “issues” are just different battlegrounds for their eternal struggle. Statism is the result of our innate desire and propensity to use force to control others, and freedom is our innate desire to be free from that control.

America was conceived in freedom, not statism. We have no problems that freedom can’t fix.

THOMAS H. DESABLA

Brookeville, Md.

Marylanders want slots

It’s time to get real and tough on the opponents of slot machines for Maryland (Metro, Thursday). This fiasco has now been playing out for going on for more than6 years and started with the Ehrlich administration.

It should be obvious that the majority of the people in Maryland are in favor of slots. It is evidenced by the number of Marylanderswhoevery week travel to Charles Town, W.Va, to Delaware, or to New Jersey, where people wised up long ago and legalized slots.

Slots will bring in huge revenues for the state and create thousands of jobs. This in turn will lower property taxes and other unnecessarily high taxes in Maryland. People will gamble — that much is evident in our state lotteries, games of chance and the Super Bowl.

So, if people are going to gamble, why not gamble in Maryland and keep the money here?

I urge the state legislature to pass a bill to legalize slot machines as soon as possible. Enough ofthis impasse.

AL EISNER

Wheaton