🚀 go-pugleaf

                                        22 May 96
          
                                        1024-A Alabama Ave.
                                        Durham NC  27705-4073
                                        (919) 416-5031

Chairman Jane Alexander
National Endowment for the Arts
1100 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, D.C.  20506

Dear Chairman Alexander,

According to the Duke University _Chronicle_ of 16 May 96, your 12 May 
commencement address to Duke's Class of 1996 contained the following 
quoted remarks.  I have some questions for you about these remarks, 
please.  Since you are very busy, I have made them all yes-or-no's, for 
your convenience in answering.

> Duke University is the alma mater of the second chairman of the 
> National Endowment for the Arts, the late Nancy Hanks, [who] was a 
> great leader, a great woman.  She is still revered for her public service 
> to the arts, and she oversaw the growth of the Arts Endowment during her 
> two terms in the 1970s.  Under her leadership, federal spending on the 
> arts increased by 1,400 percent.  She is truly one of Duke's 
> most distinguished alumni.

So on the criterion of increasing one's agency's intake from the public 
till, one becomes "truly distinguished" as a "great leader" and "great man 
or woman" for one's "public service?"  Is the ability to increase 
federal spending a virtue, and the ability to cut federal spending a vice?

Starting from $0 and increasing to the amount of the gross national product, 
is there any dollar-amount point at which the increase of the number of 
dollars that are taken _away_ from the public _to_ a bureau, stops being 
a "service" for the public?  Would the mandatory allocation of, say, the 
entire GNP, away from the public and to a bureau, be the greatest 
possible "service" the bureau could provide the public?

> Our recent agency cuts [...] were almost 40 percent.  [...] I've spent 
> most of my time [as chairman] defending the agency and the worth of 
> artists in our society.

The NEA's budget reflects artists' _worth_?  Before the NEA was founded, 
was the worth of artists in our society zero?  

> [P]oliticians generally [...] have had a very rough time lately, and I 
> have had my share as well.  [....]  It's a tough life for politicians 
> these days.

This speaking engagement was a commencement ceremony, and not a pity 
party, right?  You're not feeling suicidal, are you?  Have you given 
any thought to resigning, as one way to escape "the tough life?"  

Does life for politicians get more tough when non-politicians point out 
that the politicians' salaries come from wealth that is taken by force, out 
of the hands of the non-politicians, who created it?  Less tough?

> There may be some things wrong with government, but I have to tell 
> you there's a lot right, too.

"Have to tell" because you believe it, and not because you are required 
to propagandize as part of your job?  Is the fact that you did not name 
any specific thing that "may be" wrong with government, merely accidental?

Does it go without saying that your job with government is one of the things 
that is right with government?

Is there anything right with government that cannot be broken by what is 
wrong with government?

> [T]he arts endowment was created [in part] to attract money for the arts 
> from the private sector[.]

But wasn't the seed money creating the endowment coerced, and not attracted?

> For every dollar that we award, we in fact are able to attract 12 other
> dollars from private and public sources.

Then you shouldn't complain about budget cuts, should you?  You say that 
for every dollar that you "award," your actual holdings increase 
eleven dollars, right?  Therefore in the face of a 40% budget cut, you 
could simply "award" 4% of what was not cut, generating a 44% increase, 
right?  

Are shell games art?  Was John Maynard Keynes an artist?  Do you offer 
"awards" to con artists?  Didn't there used to be a time when 
government offered REwards--for con artists' arrest and conviction?

> In this way we have helped to sustain thousands of thousands of 
> arts organizations and artists all across America, in every single 
> pocket, including North Carolina, of course.

"Sustain"--at the coerced expense of thousands of thousands of non-artists 
and non-arts organizations all across America, out of every single pocket 
that they used to have money in, right?  You haven't helped to sustain 
_them_, have you?  You've been a downright _drain_ on them, haven't you?  

Does the End of art justify the Means of physical compulsion?  Is it good 
that individuals who actively choose not to support that which Jane 
Alexander happens to define as "the arts," can be thrown in jail as tax 
evaders, for such non-support of her personal aesthetic opinions?  If 
money that otherwise would have gone to support their viewpoints gets 
extorted at gunpoint to support yours, isn't that censorship?  

You're not even an elected official, are you?  Does the Declaration 
of Independence call for giving government this kind of power over 
people's personal lives?  Does the Constitution?  Does reason?

> Yet out of 110,000 grants given in the 30-year history, we've had about 
> 40 that have caused some people some problems.

If 40 problem-causing grants are few enough for you, are 41?  42?  43?  
Would it surprise you to learn that _every_one_ of those 110,000 grants 
has caused me, and thousands of other libertarians, a very _big_ 
problem?  Would it bother you?  Would you dismiss such a claim out-of-hand, 
as a lying stunt that couldn't possibly be genuine?

Shouldn't we repeal the coercive nature of the NEA's funding if 
_even_one_ person has had _even_one_ problem with _even_one_ grant?  
Wouldn't that person deserve to have his involuntary contribution refunded,
with interest, as an inalienable right?

Or is your motto "Vox populi, vox Piss-Christ?"

> Duke's own Nancy Hanks said[,] "[The arts] are not a luxury; they are 
> a necessity."

But does it follow that the NEA is a necessity?  That your salary is 
a necessity?  Since breathing is a necessity, not a luxury, is a 
National Endowment for Oxygen a necessity?  

Aren't things that are only decades old, like the NEA, more likely to 
be luxuries, as opposed to things like the arts which have been around 
since the dawn of history?

> [D]on't waste your voice in this democracy.  If you haven't started 
> voting, start voting this year.

So you advocate Al Capone's advice to "vote early and vote often"?  

Even if we would vote to abolish the NEA?  

Mightn't voting _be_ a waste of one's voice?  Have you ever heard 
H. L. Mencken's definition that "democracy is the theory that the common 
people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard"?

> We must keep Mother Earth whole and healthy.

Is She unwhole?  Is there an earthquake splitting Her in two?  Is Mother 
Sky falling? 

Or is Mother Earth unhealthy?  Does She have the flu?  Is it contagious?  
Are Her Brother and Sister Planets going to get sick, too?  

Thank you.


                                        Sincerely,



					Ray Ubinger
					rcu@acpub.duke.edu