Session: State Capitol, Room 24 Juneau, AK 99801-1182 Phone: (907) 465-2186 Fax: (907) 465-3818 Interim: 600 East Railroad Avenue Wasilla, AK 99654 Phone: (907) 373-1842 Fax: (907) 373-4729

An Amazing Admission

Reading Frank Gerjevic's commentary in the Anchorage Daily News Wednesday was a bit scary. At first I thought someone had let Dugan out of his cage and he had begun writing editorials, complete with throwaway ad hominems, unsubstantiated statements and weird analogies.

But no, steady Frank wrote all those sophomoric thrusts. I'm "so far to the right that I'm out of sight," I would "devastate public education, ignore the poor, gut the rule of law and wreck the economy." I'm "so far out of sight, I can only be seen with the Hubble Space Telescope." None of these accusations were demonstrated or proved! That's Dugan journalism at it's worst. Except for the last where I'm alleged to be courteous and friendly. Frank! You're blowing my image as Attila the Hun!

If Thomas Jefferson were to come back and witness how far from his and our Founding Fathers limited government philosophy we've come, he would weep. Yet when one sneers at Jeffersonian ideals, particularly, free markets and removing socialistic elements from society, one is sneering at all the famous free-market advocates from Adam Smith to Milton Friedman. Is Nobel Laureate Friedman only visible with Hubble too?

Frank, please read some literature on economics. To the degree that a civilization is economically free is the degree to which it's prosperous. With the exception of several Middle East Desert Monarchies that are awash in oil, freedom is the driving force which creates a middle class, advanced society. Can you name even one state in the history of mankind that taxed, created government programs and became wealthy? I believe sincerely that it's socialistic programs, so beloved by liberal Democrats that are quickly turning our once free state into a Third World. Prove me wrong.

I thought that with the fall of the Evil Empire, that Marxism and Socialism in all its democratic stripes was finished. You simply don't find Marxists teaching economics any more. Why? Because we've had a full century of failed and totally repulsive socialistic experiments destroying lives and nations all through the 20th Century. From Bismarck to Hitler to Stalin to Pol Pot to Mao, millions of innocent people died under the simple notion that the state should dominate people rather than a free people as masters over a limited government.

But with every liberal demand for more government paternalism, more giveaway programs, the taxes to pay for them and the armies of government workers to run them, we've failed to see that what doesn't work at the federal level doesn't work at any level, federal, state or municipal.

Time after time, the Daily News touts more taxes and government controls and that somehow these ideas are warm, kind and to be embraced by the intelligent elite who know better than the rest of us peons.

When you make fun of me, you're actually making fun of an ideology and those who embrace it. It might behoove you to remember that Tony Knowles is a minority governor. More people voted for the two conservatives than him in '94. You might remember that I've won my last four contests for the legislature not because I'm important, but because I've been honest with my advocacy of freedom and conservative ideals.

Thus you might ask, who is actually far out in the Galaxy philosophically? In Alaska we are individualists. Individualism, free markets and laissez-faire have been Republican ideals. Might the Daily News and its liberal writers be mired so deep in a dark and gloomy cave that they can't see out to the rest of us? If I'm alleged to be visible only with the Hubble Telescope, couldn't others who espouse big government be in that dark cave?

Yo Frank! Climb out! Join the rest of us who demand, and will eventually in time, reclaim our freedom!

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Vic Kohring is a 4th term Republican who was first elected to the Alaska Legislature in 1994. He represents Wasilla and Peters Creek and is Chairman of the House Transportation Committee.

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