“In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.”- Thomas Jefferson

Oh how I wish Paris Hilton would endorse free market capitalism! It would be the “must-have” economic philosophy of the season. She has to think its cool, right? After all, her Great Great Grandfather, Conrad Hilton, amassed his fortune in the markets by envisioning, building and growing one of the largest hotel chains in the world! Five-hundred and thirty-three hotels to be exact! Three generations later (and several shades of blonde lighter), Paris has made her own name for herself. The “Paris Hilton” brand has been used for the marketing and promoting of a television series, movies, beauty products, books, music all made possible by the free market system which we, capitalists, champion so fanatically. Do you think Paris would have reached this type of ‘International Pop Culture Darling’, ‘Undisputed ‘It’ Girl’, ‘Mega-Media Mogul’ status in the Soviet Union? I think NYET! The most she could have hoped for is a life as a liberated factory proletariat, earning an extra rationing of bread from a smitten officer of the Politburo. Yuck. Sounds so drab and dreary and so not the type of environment that would bring out her eyes or brighten her complexion. But in the United States of America, Paris Hilton is the ultimate, shining capitalist on the hill; Beverly Hills! So, why is it that so many celebrities brush aside or even condemn a system which has spread wealth, prosperity and sunshine to so many people around the world, instead touting a system which has brought nothing but human suffering?

I think it all boils down to marketing. Let’s face it, socialism sells. Whether you are watching the ‘Live Aid’ concert, or window shopping at a Gap retail store or just skimming the pages of an ‘US Magazine’, helping the poor, the starving and the weak is the ‘trendy’ thing to do. Finding the most efficient way to create the environment where there are no poor, starving or weak is rarely discussed and capitalism is outright demonized. When capitalists reject the notion of a hand-out culture (giving a fish rather than teaching to fish), they are labelled as cold-hearted and greedy.

Admittedly, listening to Bono belt out ‘In the Name of Love’ as images of emaciated young children float in the background, their bellies protruding with hunger, is a powerful call to arms. And yes the idealistic fantasy of changing the world by condemning the wealthy might sell t-shirts. But we cannot afford wait for the inevitable harsh reality of socialism to kick in before we start educating the young. Someone has to make the case for free market capitalism in a way that grabs their attention. Lets see…giant buckets of popcorn at the movie theatre, new Nike shoes and ipods versus bread rationing and dreary attire. Tricky….very tricky. Ask a college freshman if they can imagine the whole country being run by the government. Tell them to ponder this: every part of their lives being run like the DMV. The lines, the terrible service, the forms – then watch them curl into the fetal position. They would probably ask for a root canal instead.

In a perfect world, we wouldn’t even need to think about re-branding freedom. You would think that ‘freedom’ would be a product that sells itself, much like the Chia Pet. After all, I imagine that most people will tell you that it was the desire for freedom that jump-started the American engine and brought this country to life. But what freedom is exactly, continues to remain sort of, umm, muzzy. Its definition has been stretched and ‘silly puttied’ to include all things ‘free’; free health-care, free homes, free education, free money for Pete’s sake. When the founding fathers used the word “free” they meant “personal liberty and rights,” they didn’t mean “without cost.” There is sort of a MEGA difference there.

And so, over the years, the seemingly impregnable walls of liberty have been eroded by the greedy, idealistic or, oftentimes, just plain ignorant and uninformed hands of the masses. But why is freedom failing in the war of ideas? Why is this ‘given,’ this ‘obvious,’ this ‘fragile absolute’, slipping from our hands like a soapy baby? To put it bluntly, our PR machine has failed miserably! We have allowed capitalism to be branded and re-branded for us, like a Hollywood relationship thrown to the paparazzi piranhas. Capitalism’s rep has been viciously chewed up, morphed, twisted and then spat onto the front page of every tabloid in town. We are no longer seen as the progressive, freedom-fighting rebels who freed the slaves and defend the most revolutionary document in the history of the world. Instead, we are the selfish, gun-clinging, bible preaching, homosexual-hating, anti-woman and minority, war-loving, environment-hating, anti-education, backwards, stupid, bigoted, evil but nerdy traditionalists who tout a failed system and will stop at nothing to prevent society from changing and moving forward.

How in the world did that happen? Why and how and when did free market capitalism start to sound so… disgustingly grotesque! Take the word capitalism, for instance. Capitalism was a word coined by Karl Marx to give the free market system a bad name. So, of course, we adopted it! Or the word, ‘liberal.’ That was our word before it was snatched from under our noses along with the sheep’s clothing! So, there you have it. Why is capitalism losing out in the war of ideas? Because we are allowing it to!

Capitalism is losing in the war of ideas primarily because proponents of the philosophy are not branding and promoting these ideas correctly and, more importantly, are allowing others to brand it for them. We must come to grips with the reality that we do live in a branding and image age and if we don’t, if we continue to opt for sweater sets and pearls, pocket protectors and suspenders, “IBM blue” suits and briefcases, our philosophy will continue to be the last one picked for the team. It will join ‘Judy’s’ and ‘Napster’ in the pile of brands that I swear were popular at one point! But I think that if Steve Jobs can resuscitate the dying ‘Apple’ Brand and turn it into the powerhouse it is today, we can do the same for capitalism. After all, this cryptic philosophy is actually one of the most revolutionary, rebellious and forward-thinking concepts of all. A very sell-able product!

It is so much richer and more engaging than many people realize but that has gotten lost, as the ‘instant gratification’ generation opts for Celebrity tabloids over the books of leading free market minds like, Milton Friedman, Adam Smith, Alexis Di Tocqueville, Edmund Burke, Ayn Rand, Ludwig von Mises, or Friedrich Hayek. For many people, particularly those in fashionable, ‘image-oriented’ urban centers, it is much safer and cooler to be liberal. It’s a socially acceptable brand name. MoveOn.org, Rock The Vote and countless celebrities and organizations have been instrumental in furthering the cause, employing innovative marketing campaigns, repeating simple messages accompanied by music, imagery and fashion to prevent capitalism from infiltrating the daily conversations of America’s youth. Unless, of course, it is to back-stab it and than by all means, chatter away!

This is my attempt at making capitalism cool again. I want capitalism embraced rather than rejected by younger generations. My goal is to lay out my plan to get these ideas represented in the tabloid pages…to get free market principles endorsed by mainstream celebrities! To get young urbanites to wear “Mises” t-shirts instead of Che Guevara t-shirts! To get Sean Penn to say “I’m a freedom-loving capitalist!” the next time he wins an Oscar.

I am a woman on a mission and if I have to dress up like Cuban dictator, Fidel Castro or shake my tail feather like the flirtatious Whig salonniere, Georgina Spencer, to make a point than so be it! If I have to beg and plead on my hands and knees to get Puff Daddy to Rock the ‘Republic’ rather than the ‘Vote’ I am not too proud! OK, so shaving my head and starting an underground rebel force may be too extreme and I will just keep the trusty hunger strike as an ace in my back pocket. But this is about marketing. This is about fighting fire with fire.

It will take nothing short of a full-fledged, Apple-like marketing campaign, which is ferociously smart, loudly aggressive, sparklingly enlightening, wickedly witty, refreshingly stylish and bursting with powerful, rebellious energy, to re-introduce America to the philosophy on which she was founded on and with which she became the most prosperous and moral nation the world has ever know. As our country continues to follow the path of Rome, replacing freedom for socialism, high taxation, inflation and a treasury that has become a free for all, it is more crucial than ever to educate younger people about the principles which made America great; the same ones that could make her great again. In a nutshell, my goal is to prove that capitalism is ‘way hotter’ than socialism.

If a liberal doesn’t like guns, he wants all guns outlawed.

If a conservative is a vegetarian, he doesn’t eat meat..

If a liberal is a vegetarian, he wants all meat products banned for everyone.

If a conservative is homosexual, he quietly leads his life.

If a liberal is homosexual, he demands legislated respect.

If a conservative is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation.

A liberal wonders who is going to take care of him.

If a conservative doesn’t like a talk show host, he switches channels.

Liberals demand that those they don’t like be shut down.

If a conservative is a non-believer, he doesn’t go to church.

A liberal non-believer wants any mention of God and religion silenced.

(Unless it’s a foreign religion, of course!)

If a conservative decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping for it, or may choose a job that provides it.

A liberal demands that the rest of us pay for his.

If a conservative reads this, he’ll forward it so his friends can have a good laugh.

A liberal will delete it because he’s “offended”.

In this well-intended document, protecting clean water is and should be a big priority. The Constitution of Pennsylvania specifies that people have a right to clean water. No one of sound mind can argue against  protecting water, as it should be a priority of every citizen, and this process must be carried out within all other laws of Pennsylvania.

The USDA Forest Service defines a riparian buffer as:

Streams, rivers, lakes, and bays and their adjacent side channels, floodplain, and wetlands. In specific cases, the riparian buffer may also include a portion of the hillslope that directly serves as streamside habitats for wildlife.

To a homeowner with a stream running through his property, ordinances on riparian buffers may present a costly situation from something as simple as mowing weeds. Cutting weeds on a bank could reduce a stream’s filtration characteristics and allow poisons to leach into the waterways. This means that those weeds will need to be replaced, of course under township supervision and with an engineer’s report, thus assuming there are no fines, mowing the wrong weeds could result in hundreds or even thousands of dollars to the homeowner.

This is not a hypothetical situation – if you live in Chester County, your municipality has enacted legislation “protecting” riparian buffers on private property. Every municipality must create a comprehensive plan to outline growth controls as mandated by Chester County via a document called Landscapes. This utopian guide sets priorities which municipalities are instructed to enact through their Planning Commissions. Specifics included in Landscapes are items such as “creating affordable housing” and strict regulations around riparian buffers.

Having created a Riparian Buffer ordinance for my municipality I have uncovered many of the legalities of water legislation at the local, state and federal levels. In the quest to “do something”, mandates coming from the county level are little more than feel-good ordinances that put unreasonable restrictions on landowners. Riparian ordinances often end up creating ever larger buffers, so large that a homeowner’s property becomes untouchable, and at the same time not addressing the primary sources of water pollution: agriculture, industry, and waste treatment.

Despite their failings, Planning Commissions are typically representative of and reactive to the will of the people, and if not they are easily replaced. Unfortunately, there is now Federal legislation, introduced on April 2, 2009 by U.S. Senator Russ Feingold allegedly intended to restore protections for waterways throughout the country.  Feingold’s Clean Water Restoration Act (CWRA) would ensure protections for rivers, streams and wetlands, which were long protected under the Clean Water Act (CWA), but are now in jeopardy of losing protections as a result of two recent Supreme Court cases.

Specifically, legislation S. 787, fundamentally changes the definition of “water” under control of the federal government:

The term ‘waters of the United States’ means all waters subject to the ebb and flow of the tide, the territorial seas, and all interstate and intrastate waters and their tributaries, including lakes, rivers, streams (including intermittent streams), mudflats, sandflats, wetlands, sloughs, prairie potholes, wet meadows, playa lakes, natural ponds, and all impoundments of the foregoing, to the fullest extent that these waters, or activities affecting these waters, are subject to the legislative power of Congress under the Constitution.

No longer is there a requirement for the waters to be navigable, and includes a vast component of “activities affecting these waters”. This essentially grants vast new control of land, via all waterways and riparian buffers, to the Federal government. Ominously, the entire text of S787 has no mention whatsoever of “just compensation”, meaning that the Federal government will be able to dismantle use of land without the consequence of paying for it. This is perhaps the greatest heist ever conceived by government, turning over perhaps our most precious asset to the special interests controlling Washington DC.

We are already burdened by state and local ordinances, often passed with little or no awareness by those affected. The proposed CWRA adds a Federal component to this already tricky area. It is a matter of our inherent right through the Pennsylvania Constitution, yet that document is constrained by the other rights it specifies and laws it establishes. As we continually and typically see from our Federal government, they are not so constrained. We ignore this legislation at our own peril.

By Mr. Right

Conservatives frequently come under fire for being “anti-environment.” Their accusers “conveniently” forget that the environmental movement was started by conservatives. In his speech at Osawatomie in 1910, Theodore Roosevelt, who is widely hailed as the first modern Republican, outlined his policy of conservation, stating, “Conservation means development as much as it does protection. I recognize the right and duty of this generation to develop and use the natural resources of our land but I do not recognize the right to waste them, or to rob, by wasteful use, the generations that come after us. I ask nothing of the nation except that it so behave as each farmer here behaves with reference to his own children. That farmer is a poor creature who skins the land and leaves it worthless to his children. The farmer is a good farmer who, having enabled the land to support himself and to provide for the education of his children, leaves it to them a little better than he found it himself.

I believe the same thing of a nation.” When boiled down, Roosevelt’s position of conservation means that while we should make use of the resources our nation has been blessed with, we should not needlessly squander or abuse them. This is a philosophy with biblical underpinnings; in Genesis, God gives Adam (and all mankind) stewardship over the earth. The terms of man’s stewardship are that while man is allowed to use the resources of the earth, he must ensure that those resources are responsibly cared for and that they are replenished for use by future generations. This creates a system which when followed will ensure that man is able to work in harmony with nature.

Conversely, the majority of liberals embrace a system known as preservation. Preservation calls for man to simply leave nature alone. It is easy to see why this is a foolish system; if man leaves nature alone he is neither able to use the land nor to ensure its future existence. Conservation, the system embraced by the majority of conservatives, is the only viable environmental policy. Under conservation, the country would be allowed and/or continue to be allowed to drill in Alaska, provide recreational forests for the public use, continue to harvest lobster and other sea creatures, and much, much more. All of these things can be accomplished through the responsible system of conservation, a conservative principle which is, not surprisingly, superior to the corresponding liberal principle.

Mr. Right is a senior at a local high school.