Candidate John Arens

By Jacob Wheeler

Sun editor

Avid readers of this newspaper who also frequent the Leelanau Coffee Roasting Company and have talked with John Arens, part owner of the Glen Arbor business, know that our politics don’t align. In fact, on some days our perspectives on current issues seem as far apart as the distance from here to Wisconsin. But rather than using that as an excuse to avoid meaningful discussion, for years (ever since I worked behind the counter as a barista) John and I have engaged each other in provocative banter, usually prodding, but always listening, and respectful of the other’s views. I’ve played revolutionary Bob Dylan tunes in his establishment, and he recently leant me Radical Son, the autobiography of David Horowitz, a one-time liberal turned conservative. I’ve promised Arens that I’ll read the book before the next ice age (or before global climate change melts the polar ice caps).

So when I learned that Arens was running in the Republican primary for state representative, I jumped at the opportunity to interview him, ask a few tough questions and publish his answers in the Glen Arbor Sun (they were long: read the full interview on our webpage, GlenArbor.com) For whether or not I agree with his politics (in particular, his doubts about public education and green energy potential make me shudder), he is an articulate and witty thinker whose words deserve a place in the local rag. Arens faces an uphill battle to defeat Onekema resident Ray Franz in the Aug. 3 primary before he would even have a chance at taking on Democrat Dan Scripps, who beat Franz handily, with 60 percent of the vote, in 2008 and currently serves Michigan’s 101st District. Arens hasn’t spent the money on publicity that Franz has (road signs around Leelanau County tout Franz as a “conservative Republican”). But that doesn’t mean that this underdog should be ruled out.

Glen Arbor Sun: You are a successful part owner of the Leelanau Coffee Roasting Company in Glen Arbor? Doesn’t that keep you busy? Why run for office?

John Arens: Why not? Its Glen Lake Fair Day today, and I can’t find a parking space here at the Coffee Shop. The closest one may well be in Lansing.

Seriously, Jacob, I think Government at all levels has run completely off the rails, and has breeched the well-constructed firewalls of the constitution. And I see a fresh breeze of New Federalism on the horizon, which will mean we better be ready to take advantage here in Michigan of our long-dormant sovereignty as it pops up.

As for being busy, The Leelanau Coffee Roasting Company has an amazing bunch of people that care a great deal about it, and I am only one of them. And, I fully expect to still be involved at the coffee place, even if the clouds part, the heavens are rent asunder, and I am elected. When this state was in its infancy, it was lead by folks that put down their plows for a season once the fields were harvested, went to Lansing, debated a bit, passed a law or two, and then went home. I think there is great wisdom in this approach, and Michigan would be much better served by such citizen-legislators.

Sun: If successful, name three objectives that you’ll seek to accomplish in Lansing.

Arens: One: reduce the size, scope and reach of state Government.

Unlike many erstwhile Republicans, I am not advocating “tax cuts” per se.  I am talking about “government cuts”. And, I won’t cast these cuts simply in economic terms. There are moral components involved in respecting the dignity of grown-up, adult, Michiganders. Actually reducing the amount that the State harasses, torments and belittles its citizens would be an active admission that you as an individual, free-born, grown-up adult are perfectly capable of minding your own affairs, and those of your family and community, and that the instrumentalities of State Government should respect you for it.

This can be done a number of ways, through a number of methods: Legislatively, by executive order, or before the Bar. Or, a combination of all three. For example, in order to reduce the size and influence of the Government where it is a matter of “settled” issue or law before the courts, those in the Legislature should work hard to remove the standing of public advocacy groups that are not directly impacted and then re-file lawsuits as needed. We should as a matter of statute restore such legal pathways as “local nuisance law”, in order to attempt to short-circuit some of the authoritarian federal rulings, as well.

Two: Work with like-minded colleagues to create a totally new, creative, nimble framework for primary and secondary education.

You are either blind, or a fool, to not see that our current system of public education is a disaster, and that it needs to be ripped out, root, branch and leaf. The inequities in the foundational funding alone requires this, on top of the fiscal massacre we see at how much we spend for such middling results. And finally, we need to seriously address the horrible injustice of forcing parents to pay for a child’s education that oftentimes may actively countermand the educational priorities of those parents.

When the nation was founded, the framers rightly put the societal “informing institutions” beyond the reach and influence of government: freedom of assembly, religion, and of the press. At the time, there were no government schools, and the means of education were strictly functions of assembly and the church, so there was no need to explicitly spell out that freedom of education was inherently included in this calculation. Of course, the wheels fell off this approach when localities began taxing themselves to build schoolhouses, and the State metastasized itself inside the classroom.

This was acceptable for as long as the education kids received mirrored the wants and needs of the parents, and as long as the locality had paramount control over the operation of the Little Red School House. Obviously, this long ago ceased being true, and now the whole system needs to scrapped to achieve the basic goal: Teach kids in accordance with their parents’ means and wishes.

Three: Require home delivery of the Glen Arbor Sun state-wide. At $7 a copy.

‘Skidding. Seriously, though, if I can make substantive progress on these two things (reducing the size of State Government, and thoroughly reforming the means of primary and secondary education), then that is enough for any legislator’s plate.

Sun: Your opponent in the Republican primaries, Ray Franz, got into hot water during the 2008 election when he attacked Democratic opponent Dan Scripps (who won the election and currently holds the 101st state house seat) with a mailer that used homophobic language. What did Franz (who calls himself a “conservative Republican” on roadside billboards) do wrong in that campaign? And how is your campaign different?

Arens: I never saw the mailer to which you refer, although I did read excerpts of it, and quite a bit of the commentary about it, so I can’t definitively address its tone, if it was “homophobic”, or not. As I recall the incident, I think Candidate Franz was referring to a generous Democrat donor as a “homosexual activist”. I will say this: I am not in favor of revealing the sexual proclivities of any political donors, (aside from those who have been convicted of breaking the law) especially when the thought of the sexuality of most politicians is kind of creepy anyway.

Further, I would assume that those who donate to Democrats are, in fact, Democrats — or that they have a world-view that mirrors the choices of their endorsed candidates. If I remember correctly, the activist to whom Mr. Franz referred was Jon Stryker, who is well known in Michigan as a very wealthy, far-left supporter of Democrat issues and causes. Similarly, Betsy DeVos is a well-known wealthy, conservative donor, but I don’t recall anyone referring to her as a “heterosexual activist”. Neither seems particularly germane. Mr. Stryker’s personal choices are his own, and like everyone else, he alone is responsible for them. However, I find Styker’s political activity far more problematic than what he might (or might not) do with his clothes off. I found the whole kerfuffle to be quite odd, frankly. And I know it was a gigantic blunder on Candidate Franz’s part because Mr. Stryker’s personal affairs were so foreign to race at hand, as it remains today.

Mr. Franz’s mistake, I believe, is that at times he tends to engage his words before he engages his critical thought. For example, I have learned through the good offices of the Ludington Daily News that Mr. Franz is telling those that are interested, that I am no longer campaigning for the primary. This is odd, because I’ve seen Mr. Franz at a couple of recent candidate events, and he knows I am still an active candidate.

I am a thorough-going conservative, and I know that campaigning as such requires temperate, passionate, articulate argumentation, and ongoing appeals to reason. Throwing around intemperate, polarizing nonsense at critical times can be very hurtful to the constitutional, conservative cause (just as it clearly can be to the statist, liberal cause). There are certainly times to be loud and passionate and forceful. But this Franz mailer thing was oddly timed, and seemed genuinely weird.

This is unfortunate, because I’ve found Mr. Franz to be a perfectly nice man, and probably quite earnest in his beliefs. But, the constitutional movement needs thoughtful and rhetorically sound candidates, and I am not sanguine Mr. Franz completely fits the bill. I wish him the best.

Sun: Appealing to divisive social issues seems to be in the national Republican party’s playbook these days. Is that a good thing, or a bad thing? On which issues do you stand with the national Republican party, and where do you differ?

Arens: Well, perhaps you have a copy of that playbook. The Republicans have not sent me a copy.

I don’t know that I agree with the premise, Jacob. Some of my fellow citizens on the more liberal end of the spectrum should come to terms with the fact that these issues you reference which relate to family, traditional morality, societal culture and so forth, have deep and enduring meaning to many Americans, even more to them than, say, simple economic policy, light rail, or parking ordinances. Further, “divisiveness” can be in the eye of the beholder, as well. Some might term it “competitiveness”.

Having said this, though, the issues that relate directly to individual sovereignty and cultural mores are extremely deep, extremely personal, and thus should be treated with the utmost seriousness by both sides. Just as a societal liberal might view a buffoonish appearance of an right-wing evangelical pastor calling on God to strike down sinful living as (correctly) repulsive, it is equally offensive to see radical homosexuals dressed as nuns parading down Fifth Avenue. Caricature-like behavior begets caricature-like public policy and discourse.

Sun: In our conversations, you’ve said that you favor small government, one that’s non-intrusive, and perhaps sometimes invisible. What ought to be government’s primary functions, and what ought it to leave alone?

Arens: The primary functions of government are spelled out quite well in the Constitution, and the nub of that document is to protect the liberties and private property of free-born sovereign adults. These protection functions includes armies, patent laws, civilian police and courts, and the laws describing the intercourse of one state vis-a-vis another, and so forth. Beyond that, as James Madison wryly observed, I don’t see any indication in the constitution that provides for the absolute sheer comfortability of anyone — especially at the expense of someone else.

Sun: That said, some of the biggest problems facing the state, and the country, today, seem to lack solutions within the private sector or from the private citizenry. Malfeasance by giants such as BP and Massey Energy, and Washington’s recent moves (mostly under past administrations) to water down regulations of the behemoth oil and mining industries, led directly to recent environmental and human disasters in the Gulf of Mexico and West Virginia. The financial sector brought the 2008 recession upon us all with little or no government oversight to stop that from happening. And health care costs have risen to the point where they were completely unsustainable and forcing hard-working people into poverty. Isn’t good government part of the solution? Shouldn’t we favor good government over — or at least on equal footing with — corporations run amuck?

Arens: Thank goodness we got to the question mark here, Jacob!

The institutions of our federal and state governments have delivered our society to the point where we, as a people, now bear the burden of $65 Thousand Million Millions (-that’s “Trillions”) in unfunded public liabilities. In my view, this criminal failure means that that our Federal Government in particular has categorically surrendered all moral authority to regulate anything, from my toilet water to multi-national corporations, including BP.  I think you would agree that any institution, public or private, that so thoroughly abuses its constituent citizens (be they employees, stockholders, or voters) financially, like the Government has, to the point that it compels, it forces, it enslaves them (and their off-spring for generations) to personally pay off and atone for its reckless behavior, should be punished to the utmost — rather than given further authority over the liberties of individuals.

And this goes to the basic understanding of “free” markets. Take your statement about the “unsustainability” of health-care costs: When the United States Government entered the health-care market in a significant manner in 1966, the average cost of delivering a baby was $265. It is now, 45 years later, over $10,000. In 1966, the average cost of a new television was also $265. Today, it is $415. The “raw materials” for both activities have not changed dramatically in the last half-century, to my knowledge (and I do have two sons, so I am at least familiar with that process, although I’ve never manufactured a television). In the intervening years, the price of the TV doubled, but the cost of having a baby has increased nearly 50 fold. What changed?

A simple market fact: When government steps in, as it did in 1966, it neither creates nor manufactures anything of added value, it only “shifts” existing resources, and creates market dislocation. Each “shift” costs more resources (in fact, this could be the economic version of the second law of thermodynamics relating to friction). Each dislocation requires “making up” the resources dislocated. At some point, the multipliers add up. A baby is still free of charge to create, just as it was in 1966, but the market dislocations created by government regulations and mandates have ballooned the cost of delivering it. Clearly, then, the fix to this isn’t more government. It is less dislocation of market forces by government.

The same is true for the financial crisis: It was a beast created by market dislocation by government. I personally hold extreme environmental regulation responsible for creating the spark that ignited the financial free-fall: By virtue of our inability to site and permit petroleum refineries in America for the last 25 years, owing to the byzantine and onerous rules for citing them created by the EPA, we had a market scarcity of refined petroleum in the fall of 2007. This caused a run on refined petroleum in the western world, which drove up the cost of unrefined product, which caused scarcity of both by the spring of 2008, and a run-up in the speculative futures price. This meant Joe Schmoe of Kokomo wound up paying $4 a gallon for gas, and all those other things that were once affordable for him (say, a 100% loan-to-value mortgage) were suddenly un-affordable. The sudden, cascading effect was stunning throughout the general economy at that point. If we had continued to have $1.29 per-gallon gasoline, as we did in 2007, there would have been no “financial crisis”. Pure and simple.

Jacob, I would be careful about throwing around the term “malfeasance”. That implies criminal premeditation on the part of BP. “Misfeasance”, perhaps. I am fairly sure they didn’t knowingly blow up one of their own wells, and kill 11 of their employees. But, I would also point out that the mere existence of BP is a creation of the federal leviathan: It’s incarnation here in America as a monstrous international entity cobbled out of the rump ends of the federally mandated break-up of Standard Oil (which was broken up into Amoco, Esso, Conoco, Exxon, etcetera). Since the end of the Rockefeller era, the oil industry is one of the most heavily regulated industries in our nation, and, after the Exxon Valdez and the Deepwater Horizon, I am not sure what this regulation has bought, and at what price.

The logical fallacy here is that the free market, when untrammeled, will run roughshod over individuals. Let’s accept that for argument’s sake. But, what of untrammeled government? Wouldn’t it trend toward a similar outcome? They are both human constructs, so the logical answer is, yes. While the market is not perfect, which I would never argue, it is clearly more perfect in that it must answer to the needs and whims of tens of millions of individuals, making tens of millions of individual decisions, versus government, which only coerces and forces people to its will.

As for the canard of “Good Government”: Government Governs — it doesn’t nurture. It can only coerce and impel, ultimately at the point of a law-enforcement gun. The sooner a voter comes to terms with this concrete fact, the sooner we will have “Just and Effective Government”.

Sun: Here at home, Michigan has been bleeding jobs for the better part of a decade, the auto industry has all but imploded, and there doesn’t seem to be any hope in sight. Many have posited that investing in the clean energy sector (wind, solar, hydro, and perhaps nuclear) is a way to bring manufacturing and skilled jobs back to Michigan. Where do you stand on this? What kinds of state government investments and initiatives would help create jobs here at home?

Arens: I stand on “cheap” energy. I don’t care if it comes from elderberry fumes, and some enterprising chap finds a way to market them. I also stand on extremely “abundant” energy. I also stand on “safe” energy, which all existing base-load power is, especially when placed on the overall economic balance.

But, “Green Energy” jobs, as such, are a myth. Spain, which has been “investing” (that is, coercing markets) in “Green” jobs for over a decade, has recently come to the conclusion that it is a giant sucking maw at the public treasury. For every $230,000 spent, only $38,000 was returned to the general economy in the form of a job, or what have you; and, as I say, this was after ten years. “Clean Energy” is an emotional euphemism, and has a whiff of propaganda, dependent on its verbal reverse for effectiveness: “Dirty Energy”. Nobody, of course, wants that.

But, our current market-driven system of energy delivery is already manifestly clean, especially when compared to the America of 70 or 100 years ago. Go to Mackinac Island on a hot, steamy July day for evidence of how “clean” our transportation is today, compared to how it was in the horse and buggy era.  I especially enjoy trundling my wheeled luggage over the road apples. And, my mom and dad remember their childhoods in Lansing, when they had to get out and play in the new-fallen snow quickly, before it got covered with an ugly sheet of coal soot from all the neighborhood coal-burning furnaces. Nowadays, you flip a switch, the heat comes on, and the snow stays white.

There is a reason that Michigan grew from a backwater prairie outpost to world-class industrial power in roughly 80 years, between 1840 and 1920: Michigan was at the vanguard of utterly free-market mercantile capitalism. You see, Michigan had once experimented with giant Public Works in its very early years of statehood, and left a number of New York bondholders holding a very empty bag for a failed publicly-owned railroad system. After that Rube-Goldberg experiment of the late 1830s, Michigan was both unwilling and unable to float bonds for such things, which in their day, were the equivalent of Governor Granholm’s “Green Jobs” initiatives. Instead, Michigan chose the way of public frugality, and general liberty. As a result, the Fords, the Durants, the Kelloggs, the Dows, were free to experiment, put their sweat and capital at risk for little overhead burden, and they created an entire new civilization.

That could easily happen again if we made the political determination to remove regulatory obstacles, open lands and resources currently put off-limits by government’s arbitrary fiat, and remove the standing in court that crony capitalists and left-wing agitators alike enjoy.

Michigan is an amazing, amazing place. It’s people are some of the most sophisticated, hard-working, creative folks on the planet. Michigan should be the golden place, and the golden age, in which to live. All we need is the political will to make it happen.

Sun: Of course, tourism, and not auto manufacturing, is the name of the game here in Leelanau County. What should politicians in Lansing be doing to help folks up north?

Arens: Get the heck out of the way. For example, most of the beachfront hotels in Michigan would love to be, ‘er, “beachfront”. Instead, many of them are “reed-front” or “fen-front”, and the owners of the properties would jump at the chance to recharge their beachfronts with the beautiful sugar-sand that sits a couple of hundred feet out in the water, sitting at the bottom of the bay, or lake. Let them rebuild their beaches with it, as they could prior to about 1978.  Let the sunbathers, and toddlers and swimmers enjoy real sand beaches. That’s what attracts tourists, not wilderness areas that only Park Rangers can enjoy.

Besides, the level of Lake Michigan will come back up anyway in the next 10 years, and all of the so-called “emerging wetlands” of the firth will again be submerged. Bank on it.

Also, the State and Local governments should re-align their taxing, permitting and citing requirements to more easily allow developers to take over distressed or unfinished projects, such as the condo projects in Manistee, or the Black Hole of Petoskey, and to partner alongside those that have real money to spend on such projects.

I will also point out that Michigan has lost a vast swath of 850,000 middle-management, or highly skilled labor jobs since 2007. Those people used to fill the hotels, buy the t-shirts, and play the putt-putt, but they’ve moved on. We can fix this, though. Remember: when Henry Ford went to build his Highland Park plant in 1904, which, along with his River Rouge project in the 1920s, went on to employ nearly 185,000 people, he had very few regulatory hoops he had to jump through, both at a local, and a state level. And Hamtramck and Dearborn exist because of it. We can create that kind of climate again in Michigan, if we are serious about jobs, and a liberty-based way of life; or, we can be mealy-mouthed about it, and watch while we wring our hankies over “wetland” protection, or whether or not we are disturbing the local dandelions.

Sun: Bringing things back to Glen Arbor, what’s the best coffee at the Roasters? And have you seen any interesting characters come through the cafe today?

Arens: Oh, man: a softball! I just had a cup of Guatemala that was so bright and spring-like that my tongue thought we were having a party. It depends, really, on what’s just been roasted.

But, as you know, we just lost one of the Most Interesting Characters that ever walked through the cafe (and who walked through it the first day we were open, by the way): Don Vavra. I still expect to see the old fellow come through the door, and ask for “brewed coffee”. Don was a great, great man — and he knew how to live life, that’s for sure. Life was a canvass to him, and he was the artist.

Sun: You live near Sugar Loaf resort. Got any good Liko Smith stories for us? And what’s the secret to getting the long shuttered ski resort open again?

Arens: Liko who?

Oh, yeah, him: “Mr. Smith Goes to Cedar”. I understand he was a boxer of some type. I knew the minute Mr. Smith said he was going to open the hotel “by July 4th” that he was, shall we say, “punch-drunk”. The last publicly revealed suitors (the Lutz’s, I think) of the resort back in 2006, it should be remembered, walked away once they discovered they couldn’t obtain a clear title to the place after two years of searching — and this Smith fellow is going to walk in, turn on the lights, and start leaving mints on the sun-bleached pillows? It sure seemed like a con-game to me.

All I can tell you is that it is a heartbreaking scene up at Sugar Loaf. The memories are trapped in the amber of about 1975 everywhere you look. For crying out loud, Sandy Miller was my ski instructor there, back when we were both many eons younger. Other than Boyne, it was the place to go in the ‘70s and early ‘80s. The hill itself is probably the second best in the Lower Peninsula. And the view is magnificent.

But, if you go there now, the box elder trees are reclaiming the slopes, the seats on the J-Bar have rotted off, and lay right beneath where they’ve fallen. The warming hut at the top of the hill is sliding down the hill. Windows and doors are broken out, or boarded over. The eaves are crumbling on the buildings, the swimming pools have cracked, and I wouldn’t get on one of the sclerotic lifts now unless all the moving parts and electrical service were replaced.

Other than Kate Wickstrom, or her secured interests, deciding that they can take a massive loss to unload the place to someone with aquifer-deep pockets, I don’t know what can be done at this point. And it sure looks like Remo will run to the darkest corner of Fiji to avoid taking a real loss.

Polselli paid what, $11 million for the place? And, as far as I can tell, Kate has what amounts to a glorified land contract for roughly the same amount. Five or six years ago, I think Kate could have opened the hotel and restaurant to at least get some revenue flowing, but now, after half a decade of abandonment, I don’t know.

The real problem is that it’s such a tangled mess of competing legal interests. Who actually holds the paper on the place? Is there fraud involved, known or unknown, to the signatories? Who is suing whom over what? If the resort stays wide open and unbarricaded long enough, some kid is going to wander onto the grounds in a drunken stupor, fall into one of the holes or through a window and get hurt, and then what? It certainly is an attractive menace, to say the least, to use a legal term. Of course, if the taxes don’t get paid over time, this will be a moot discussion anyway, the County and the taxpayers will own it. At which point, maybe the county could abate away the taxes, or create some sort of TIFA district there to entice a purchaser. But, it would be silly to even propose such a thing until they actually took possession of it, which could be a disaster, too.