by Andrea Neal In the drizzling pre-dawn rain of Nov. 7, 1811, on high ground near modern-day Lafayette, Gen. William Henry Harrison squashed Tecumseh’s dream of an Indian confederacy that could resist the white man’s westward advances. The Battle of Tippecanoe was a defining moment in U.S.-Native American relations. “It was on this spot the Native Americans lost their grip on the fertile Midwestern lands they had roamed for thousands of years,” according to interpreters…

Sheriffs, please understand, are different from the tawdry mix of ambition and vanity that makes up local officialdom. Sheriffs are precursors of our constitutional republic and its attendant democracy. They arose in first-century Anglo-Saxon England or even with the Norse. They were the natural, chosen leaders of their communities (shires), their title dating back to Alfred the Great. Sheriffs in this Alfredian mold spoke truth to power. They kept local order, but more important to…

by David Penticuff Like too many others, my community and its associated agencies, plus the county’s redevelopment commission, continue to borrow money to pay off previously borrowed money in an attempt to stay ahead of default, a richly deserved default. It is beyond parody. Fiction writers would have such a story rejected on the face of its incredulity. Someone, someplace in local government surely must have the fortitude to say we are wrecking ourselves financially…

by Andrea Neal In 1796, John James Dufour left his native Switzerland to seek a new life and opportunity in the United States. Less than a decade later, he opened the country’s first successful winemaking business — in southeastern Indiana. It was still the Indiana Territory at that time, but the settlement would soon become the town of Vevay in Switzerland County. It was briefly a popular destination for Swiss immigrants fleeing revolutionary Europe. Dufour…

by Cecil Bohanon, Ph.D. Central to the success of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), aka Obamacare, are 20- to 30-year-olds buying government-approved health-insurance policies. The administration, its friends and allies are running a full-court public-relations drive touting the advantages of health insurance to these young folks. Advertising may facilitate some to sign up, but economists generally believe that incentives are more important. How, then, does the ACA change economic incentives so that the young and…

Did you hear the howls of pain throughout Indiana from local officials on announcement that the Pence administration would phase out their golden goose, the business personal-property tax? The governor thinks it will level the playing field, attract investment and create jobs. The anguish is genuine. The amount of revenue to be lost — about a billion a year statewide — means that county and city officeholders won’t be able to finesse this. They may…

“If the actions of government officials lead citizens to conclude that those officials are no longer meaningfully bound by the law, then citizens will rightly conclude that neither are they.” — Michael F. Cannon of the Cato Institute testifying before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, Dec. 3, 2013, on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. by Roman Buhler The authors of our Constitution would be astonished at the arrogance and growing power of 21st-century…

(For the use of the membership only; copyright © 2013 by Tom Charles Huston, all rights reserved, reprinted by permission) by TOM HUSTON As a young lawyer, my first encounter with the Byzantine system of governmental land-use regulation resulted from the desire of a client to expand its manufacturing plant. The plant was located in an aging and ultimately derelict industrial area on the near east side of Indianapolis and the contemplated expansion consisted of…

by Andrea Neal In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson asked Meriwether Lewis to lead an exploration of the Louisiana Territory in search of a Northwest Passage. Lewis invited William Clark to join him. It would become one of the most famous partnerships in history, and it started in Indiana. “When they shook hands, the Lewis and Clark expedition began,” wrote Stephen Ambrose in “Undaunted Courage,” the best-selling account of the trans-continental journey. Lewis was working at…

by Cecil Bohanon, Ph.D. Recent census data indicates that, although the total number of households in the United States increased between 2008 and 2011, the number reporting an earned annual income of $35,000 to $100,000 actually decreased by 676,000. This is significant because it confirms the narrative of middle-class decline. I have always thought that if middle-class decline is accompanied by a decline in households with lower income (under $35,000) and an increase in upper-income…