Malcolm Cutchins: Signs point toward better days ahead

Locally there are signs that things are getting better. Of several acquaintances, for example, one is refinancing a home with a local bank at almost one percent lower interest.
Another’s IRA’s gained over 6 percent just in the last month. Two other friends decided to leave good positions they have had for some time for significantly higher salaries and better, but similar, positions.

There are over 1,000 new condos under construction on Shelton Mill Road near Covenant Presbyterian Church. One thousand homes are planned (many built already) in National Village at Grand National. New shopping is scheduled on North College. The major increase in student housing on the campus of Auburn University is nearing completion. Major improvements of roads on the campus and in west Auburn are under way.

The constant barrage of bad news on national television (much of it to heighten the “crisis” so that more government encroachment can be “justified”) certainly has significant effects, for sure. One small business owner told me, “Most companies are just too skittish right now to make long-term commitments.” That’s what government takeovers and presidential attitudes like “things will get worse before they get better” will do.

Amid all the bad news there are signs that sanity will eventually prevail in our nation. I like what the president of The Heritage Foundation (Dr. Ed Feulner) has noted: “In all of modern history, no central government has ever succeeded at controlling a nation’s economy and managing its industries. Human society flourishes when government protects individual rights and allows free markets to work. The American Founders understood this. When the latest liberal delusions collapse, as they surely will, the path back to sanity will be marked by America’s founding principles.”

Recently in northern Virginia, a bookstore held a book signing for Mark Levin’s “Liberty and Tyranny” (No. 1 best seller on Amazon.com soon after it was released in March. There are 38 pages of detailed references. Levin is a New York Times bestselling author and holds a law degree from Temple University). Scheduled to start at 11 a.m., people began lining up for the book signing before 6 a.m., a line that soon stretched several city blocks. Similar crowds have occurred in other cities.

Levin’s five chapters on our founding, our Constitution, and on federalism are excellent reading. These and his chapters on the free market, the welfare state, “Enviro-Statism,” immigration, and self-preservation would be excellent required reading in our schools.

With public school dropout rates in our 67 counties averaging 38.75 percent (that’s not a misprint!), there have to be some things in the curricula that could be replaced! (Lee County is almost right on the average, 38.74. Only nine counties were under 30 percent.)

We must do better. Are the “liberal delusions” to which Dr. Feulner referred at work here?

Dr. Malcolm Cutchins is an emeritus professor of engineering of Auburn University and writes a weekly column for the Opelika-Auburn News.