Halvorson backed in race
I am both pleased and inspired that Art Halvorson is once again running for Congress. Although I am normally a registered Independent, I have changed my registration to Republican so I can vote for Halvorson next May.
This time, he is very likely to win.
Halvorson has the character, the determination and the personal integrity to resist capture from the entrenched, wholly unaccountable interests that now control Washington. His conservatism is sincere, and isn’t spun from a shallow Fox News-style narrative masking some corporate agenda. Halvorson knows that economic prosperity is impossible without a free, fast-growing private sector thriving in a business-friendly environment.
But Halvorson also understands that big government is most dangerous when it colludes with big business. He understands the difference between the free market and corporate rule. He can distinguish between free trade and lopsided, anti-sovereign trade deals that lock our country into economic decline.
Halvorson also understands the existential threat posed to our country by mass, largely uncontrolled immigration. He will not ignore the glaring caveat posed by the dire situation in Europe, where mass Islamic immigration is undermining security while altering the fundamental character of western civilization, especially in Germany, Sweden, France and the Netherlands. While the U.S. will always provide sanctuary to political dissidents, intellectuals and religious refugees from the Islamic world, importing entire communities of people from places like Yemen, Somalia, Egypt and Syria is destructive and unfair to our own people.
Mr. Halvorson will also work to stop the hemorrhage-like federal spending that threatens to erase any hope of prosperity for our children. He will rely on truly free market solutions to invigorate the economy, not Trojan-horse public spending plans that deliver economic control to a handful of powerful corporate interests. He will resist not only the neo-liberal social agenda pursued by Hollywood and various university campuses, but also the insidious assaults on our national sovereignty, our industrial might and our individual liberties -no matter from which direction they arise.
Perhaps most importantly for me, Halvorson heads a loving, tight-knit, religious family. This reflects on what kind of man he is. It implies Christian decency, self-respect, dignity, discipline and restraint. While I’m sure Bill Shuster is a very nice fellow, can we really ascribe those same qualities to him?
It will take a principled and capable conservative like Halvorson to reverse the flow of our core manufacturing assets to slave-wage dictatorships overseas, to reassert control over our borders, and to distinguish our legitimate sovereign interests from those of fickle, fair-weather “allies.”
The founders never intended for Congress to be monopolized by career politicians, much less political families like the Shusters. It is time for our long-suffering district to reject dynasty politics, and invite Bill Shuster to vacate the seat he inherited in 2001. He has consistently voted against our local and national interests from the moment he took office. He is also personally ill-suited to the role. It is time to elect Art Halvorson to Congress.
Richard Latker is a resident of Hollidaysburg.