Thursday evening the Renaissance Theatre in Mansfield was filled to capacity with an audience anticipating “An evening with Mark Steyn.” Mark Steyn is an international bestselling author, recording artist, leading Canadian human rights activist, and conservative political commentator.
The event was hosted by the Ashbrook Center at Ashland University and co-sponsored by WMAN Radio and the Ariel Corporation.
Before entertaining the audience with his satirical highlights of some of America’s federal policies, Steyn said, “Ashbrook [The Ashbrook Center] is in the liberty business. I am in the liberty business. A lot of you are in the liberty business, but a lot of your fellow Americans and fellow citizens of advanced democracies throughout the world have checked out of the liberty business.”
The Canadian-born speaker, after describing himself as a legal immigrant, said, “Illegal immigrants were given permission to march on the so-called closed National Mall that’s been closed by this government shutdown, while legal, law-abiding tourists who spend thousands of dollars to fly here from Australia and Europe were held under armed detention in Yellowstone Park the other day.”
Steyn was referring to the immigration reform rally which the National Park Service allowed to take place earlier this month on the National Mall in Washington D.C, even though it was closed due to the federal shutdown. The Yellowstone reference was to the Oct. 1 incident at Yellowstone National Park in which senior citizens and foreign tourists were locked in a park hotel under armed guard at the beginning of the government shutdown.
Steyn spoke on a number of politically-devisive topics that included Obamacare and the national debt ceiling. As Steyn spoke about the national debt, he said, ”There is nothing compassionate about wanting to spend your grandchildren’s money.”
With tongue in cheek, Steyn spoke about the debt ceiling and said, “The problem is not the ceiling, it’s the debt.”
“Just to put this so-called debt ceiling into perspective,” Steyn said, “two summers ago, at the time of the last big phoney showdown, there was a dispute between John Boehner [U.S. Representative-R] and the congressional budget office (CBO) about so-called scoring of the deal. Speaker Boehner said the deal called for $7 billion of cuts for the 2012 budget–$7 billion. The CBO said the plan only reduced the 2012 deficit by $1 billion, and Boehner and the CBO argued back and forth about which of these numbers is correct. The correct number is ‘Who cares?’ The government of the United States commonly spends $188 million dollars it doesn’t have, every hour of every day—24/7, 365 days a year.”
Continuing he added, “By the time the actual bill passed the senate later that year, that 2012 Austerity Budget, with its brutal $1-$7 billion of cuts to government services, had actually mysteriously wound up increasing spending by $10 billion. So John Boehner spent the summer negotiating a spend cut that actually increased spending….That’s the problem here: The default setting of Washington is more, more, more. And neither party has demonstrated the ability to implement real, necessary, painful cuts.”
When questioned by an audience member on his views of Conservatives and their presence in pop culture, said that it was his belief that, ”Culture trumps everything–conservatives need to be present in the culture and need to be engaged, not just that one day in November but the other 364 days of the year as well.”
In his closing remarks following a parody of a park ranger, Steyn said, “Smokey the Bear says…Only you can prevent the petty despotisms that license all the larger despotisms to come….Make the difference at the lemonade stand level. Make the difference at the town level. Make the difference at the school district level and remember Milton Freedman’s words that ‘You don’t wait to elect the right people to do the right thing. You create the conditions whereby the wrong people are forced to do the right thing because they can’t get away with doing what they’d like to do.’ Change the conversation, and make this land your land once again.”
Steyn is known for such polarizing books as “America Alone: The End of The World As We Know It”, and “After America: Get Ready For Armageddon.” At the conclusion of the show eight of Steyns’ books were for available for purchase and signing by Steyn.
“The default setting of Washington is more, more, more. And neither party has demonstrated the ability to implement real, necessary, painful cuts,” said Mark Steyn of the national debt.
