12. Questions for Candidates in the 2022 Congressional Election in WI-03

Candidates [in alphabetical order]
Rebecca [Cooke]
Deb [McGrath]
Mark [Neumann, with his comments]
Brad [Pfaff]
Derrick [Van Orden],

Here are the questions I would like you to address. I know time is short, and for that I apologize. Please respond to the questions in bold print at the end of the section addressed to you. Whether or not you choose to respond, I will feel free to talk about you. I will request further interviews with Derrick and with whichever of you Democrats wins the primary.

I welcome your responses at hope4you@centurytel.net . You may also contact me at (608) 790-8863. I think the easiest approach at this time would be for you to respond in print to my questions and your opponents’ responses.  If any of you are interested and have the time, I would also welcome interviews in my home in La Crosse or by Zoom. For now, please read and respond to the questions addressed to you. You will also have the opportunity to respond to each other, as I will share responses back to you all as time allows.

The interviews or responses will be available to the public at no charge [at www.LaCrossePiano.com ]. I will have a presence with my comments and other premium material [at www.HometownStream.net,] a streaming service based in Tomah [in the near future].

You should respond to me because I intend to share the interviews and my comments throughout the district. My questions are tough, but I intend them to be fair and tough for each of you candidates. This race is too important to the district, the country and the world to stay in the shallow water, and I am not aware of any other initiative to allow candidates from both parties to interact before the primary. You may address whichever questions you choose, but my comments will not be limited to those questions.

(To the public:)
Are you fed up with shallow campaign ads? Would you like to hear congressional candidates face questions that get to the heart of the divisions in our district and country? I’m Dan Eumurian, a piano technician, music teacher and award-winning independent journalist and songwriter from La Crosse. Most and hopefully all of the five candidates for the Third District seat in Congress have agreed to let me interview them. The goal of my channel “Live Armadillo” https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4QPzyWHpOJDQC6chbRBaMg  and my upcoming channel on www.HometownStream.net, a new streaming service out of Tomah, will be to establish more common ground, or better informed, more respectful disagreement and to introduce my creative material to the public. The questions and responses will be free on YouTube, and my comments, songs, poems will be available at Hometown Stream, along with material on motor sport safety pioneer Jim Deist, the “Parachute Man,” classic movies and TV, and much more! Although I’m not currently a member of any political party, I spoke personally with Richard Nixon on a policy issue when I was 16, and Rep. Ron Kind has called me “the Singing Voice for Farmers in the State.” Here are my tough questions and the candidates’ responses, in alphabetical order:
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To Rebecca Cooke:
Rebecca, you say you want to “(m)ake decisions based on scientific evidence rather than politics.” Many people note that there is scientific evidence that an unborn child/fetus is an individual, distinct from the mother or father. Stuart W. G. Derbyshire writes,

Although the system is clearly immature and much development is still to occur (fig 1), good evidence exists that the biological system necessary for pain is intact and functional from around 26 weeks' gestation. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1440624/) Downloaded by Dan Eumurian, July 27, 2022.

Also, you state on your website, “…[H]ealth care is a human right….” With rights come responsibilities. Magatte Wade, born in Senegal, is, like you, an entrepreneur and business owner. (“How Black Lives Truly Matter: Magatte Wade and Dr. Jordan Peterson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o74rQmLRqtA 
1) Eliminate oppressive regulations
2) Capitalism and entrepreneurship as consistent with pre-slavery and pre-colonial African economy
3) Oppose corruption)

How should we balance private enterprise and government involvement both to encourage and to support individual initiative? And, in light of the above-mentioned scientific evidence and the pro-life sentiments of much of the Third District, would you support legislation that would establish a middle ground on the issue of abortion?
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To Deb McGrath:
Deb, you have an extensive military and CIA background, and deep knowledge of Russia. What is your take on the conflict between Russia and Ukraine? Also, Vladimir Putin looks to religious and political history, complains about “Western decadence,” and responds to it by lying about his intentions and attacking civilians and non-military targets and threatening nuclear conflict. I suggest that an approach to him might be to remind him that Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are the peacemakers,” and that he told Peter, “Put up your sword.”

I believe the United States could do better than Putin by showing that we too oppose decadence, or at least that we tolerate those who claim to be opposing decadence—and we do it peacefully. Often, however, liberals/progressives take a hard line regarding social issues, and seem to be joined by Big Tech, the legacy media, big corporations, public universities and more.

I’ve learned much from the noted Canadian clinical psychologist Dr. Jordan B. Peterson. He writes regarding the following YouTube interview, “In this episode, Rod Dreher and I discuss his latest book ‘Live Not By Lies,; the continuous emergence of Communism in the West, ideology as a substitute for religion, the importance of courage, and more….” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1JuWVeJS-E  I would welcome your thoughts on Communism in Russia, China, North Korea, and, according to some, in North American universities.

I believe there are some cultural-war “swords” that need to turned into “plowshares.” Will you commit to encouraging vigorous, respectful, peaceful debate, and free speech on campus, including regarding social issues?
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To Mark Neumann:
Mark, you “…support the decriminalization of drug possession, and will seek funding for harm reduction policies.” You also “…will support the full legalization of cannabis, push to expunge, and vacate all marijuana convictions, and support the reinvestment of revenue into communities hardest hit by the War on Drugs.”

Christina Caron of the New York Times recently published an article titled “Psychosis, Addiction, Chronic Vomiting: As Weed Becomes More Potent, Teens Are Getting Sick.” They remarked, “With THC levels close to 100 percent, today’s cannabis products are making some teenagers highly dependent and dangerously ill.”  https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/23/well/mind/teens-thc-cannabis.html?smid=tw-share Downloaded by Dan Eumurian, July 27, 2022.

Also, you say on your website, “In Congress, I will support expanded protections for farm workers, and fight for a fairer and more streamlined immigration system.” In 2019, Robert D. Blackwill of the Council on Foreign Relations gave President Trump a “D+” on foreign relations, while stating that Trump was better than the Democrats with regard to the southern border, China, and North Korea. President Biden, having reportedly spent $2 billion to stop building Trump’s border wall, has reportedly reversed position and is supporting additions to the border wall in Arizona. What is your position regarding border security, addressing oppressive conditions in Latin American countries including Cuba and Haiti, and encouraging US trade with and investment in Latin American and African countries?

While avoiding the negative elements of the War on Drugs, will you join me in calling for non-pharmaceutical approaches to dealing with emotional distress and elation?

[Mark’s Reply: ]

Hi Dan, 

Not a lot of time to spare, but I will try to get off at least a preliminary response. 

Your first question to me, appears to be more of a statement than a question. I can try to guess the question that you were trying to ask me to be something like how do I reconcile my support for the legalization of marijuana with the health risks of THC use? 

If this was your question, then this is my response. 

I believe that marijuana should not be a DEA class scheduled drug just as tobacco and ethanol containing beverages are not scheduled. If THC is to be scheduled, then it should not be a schedule I drug (as marijuana is currently scheduled) recognizing that THC has some medical uses currently being recognized. 

With regard to the "War on Drugs," I believe that punitive responses to addiction in our society are not helpful. And worse than that they are harmful and lead to mass incarceration and racist injustice. We need therapeutic responses and harm reduction approaches for our addiction response policy. 

Finally, vaping products of all kinds are dangerous to health and the marketing of these products should be strongly regulated (like alcohol and tobacco products already are).  I believe that age restrictions banning the sale of vaping products to children is a good thing. 

With regard to your second question: 

What is your position regarding border security, addressing oppressive conditions in Latin American countries including Cuba and Haiti, and encouraging US trade with and investment in Latin American and African countries?

I believe that we need a comprehensive update of our immigration policy (something not done since the Reagan administration), and I regret that the immigration policy confusion (chaos) that reigns appears to be used as a political football so that neither party appears to be ready to get serious about updating this much needed policy. With regard to foreign policy, I believe that the golden rule is a good place to start: "Do unto others as you would have them do  unto you." 

And finally, non-pharmacologic approaches to emotional distress and elation are the starting point and preferential option in therapeutic interventions. 

There is much more that we could discuss and go into about the subjects that you ask me to address.  

Simply put, at this point in my campaign, it is only fair that you realize that I have too much else to do during GOTV work. 

All the very best, 

Mark

Dan’s reply:

Thank you, Mark, for your response. I’d like to see this kind of nuanced thinking expressed in the public sphere, rather than the slogans and trigger words I hear on both sides of such issues.

You say, “We need therapeutic responses and harm reduction approaches for our addiction response policy.” I understand such perspectives, but I think society, including government, should establish a baseline. A high school football coach once told his team, as they stood on the brink of an undefeated season, having just stopped to pick up an old man who had been part of the last such season in the town, “You are a part of something greater than yourselves.” If we understand that there is something sacred about sexuality, childhood, advanced age, the family, the human brain, and the universe, we won’t need as many rules to restrict harmful behavior and as many drugs to take the edge off of positive and negative human experience. Aldous Huxley, in Brave New World, talked about “soma,” the feel-good drug. I feel good when a child internalizes a piano lesson, when I write a zinger of a song, or when I see a young couple living in a ramshackle mobile home, deeply in love and looking for ways to share their happiness with others. I believe that inordinate use of drugs can counterfeit such “natural highs,” and I feel more than an analytical response to the loss of sacredness, and to the results of that loss.
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To Brad Pfaff:
Brad, you criticize Derrick for his sexual indiscretion, for his participation in the January 6, 2021 incident, and for making a young library worker feel uncomfortable regarding a Gay Pride poster in a library. Yet Hunter Biden’s sexual indiscretions, his and possibly his father’s conflict of interest regarding China, the president’s huge funding requests for partisan projects, his purging from the military of “white nationalist” sympathizers but not of anarchistic-violence sympathizers, his allowing of what some term an “invasion” across our southern border, his reluctance to encourage North American oil production, sexuality and gender indoctrination of young students in public schools, and Democratic support for generous unemployment benefits in the face of budget issues and a shortage of workers, only serve to make the conservative half of the country feel uncomfortable and defensive. Bjorn Lomborg, author of False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet, argues for what he considers a reasonable approach to the problem, while President Biden talks of spending another $500 billion on it. A Dutch farmer was reportedly threatened with having to cull 95 percent of his dairy herd because of emissions causing global warming: https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_app/dutch-dairy-farmer-faces-having-to-cull-95-percent-of-his-cows_4596335.html Congressman Kind says he’s been bipartisan, but 49 percent of the district voted against him in the last election. Are you willing to consider compromise on these issues?
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To Derrick [Van Orden]:
[Derrick,] [y]ou make a point of being a Christian. Will you apologize for your indiscretion regarding the incident with the ailing soldier and the two female officers, and then address issues such as the following: Social Security and Medicare; increasing respect for, and addressing crime, poverty, violence and corruption in Latin America and Africa, and encouraging investment and trade in order to reduce the pressure on their citizens to want to come to the United States and to counter China’s exploitative incursions into these countries; standing up to President Trump’s boast to his wealthy friends at Mar A Lago that his tax cuts would make them even wealthier; developing policies that would benefit small to medium-sized farms rather than the large corporate farms that Trump’s agriculture secretary Sonny Perdue is said to have supported? See: By Desmond Butler, The Washington Post     Updated: June 29, 2021Published: June 29, 2021
https://www.adn.com/nation-world/2021/06/29/agriculture-corporation-sold-land-to-trump-usda-secretary-sonny-perdues-company-for-a-fraction-of-its-value-soon-before-he-took-office/
Downloaded by Dan Eumurian, July 30, 2022.)
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After each of you has responded to my questions, I would welcome your comments on the answers of your opponents.

My final question for each of you is: President Obama warned against “rabid nationalism.” What will you do to help the needy and deserving, curb inflation, properly stimulate our economy, keep our national debt under control, reduce hostility among Americans, work with our trading partners, compete with our competitors, and give us the economic strength that is part of our national security? How will you balance “rabid nationalism” and “rabid internationalism,” affirming the best of our country’s heritage while atoning for our mistakes and forging a brighter future for the Third District, America, and the world?

I would also welcome your final comments, in 200 words or less, along with links to your respective campaigns, and your comments on my questions. Thank you for your participation. Please reply to hope4you@centurytel.net as soon as you can. We’ll be in touch!

Dan Eumurian
B. Mus. in Music Ed., Kent State University
M. A. in Theological Studies, Wheaton College Graduate School

Dan Eumurian
Registered Piano Technician, The Piano Technicians Guild, Inc.
1634 Barlow St., La Crosse, WI 54601
dba Eumurian Piano Sales & Service
(608) 788-8637 (78-TUNER)    c790-8863
hope4you@centurytel.net                    djeumurian@gmail.com
www.LaCrossePiano.com