Abortion and religious freedom

A Tribune reader (May 28) wrote long and eloquently about abortion and religious freedom. 

There is one point where I think I need to add something. 

She seemed worried that religious people might try to impose their beliefs on others.  But why is that worse than non-religious people doing the same?

The fact is that everybody has a worldview.  It’s what you believe about life: what is right, what is wrong, what is good, what is bad, what is important, what is not, what are the rules, are there any rules.  And that’s what religions are. 

And nations have worldviews too.  A moral framework out of which it makes its laws and derives its culture. 

The writer spoke of our country as a democracy, where I suppose we could run our country by public opinion polls to make all of our decisions. 

Frankly, this is one reason why I am not a fan of diversity.  It makes it all the harder for our country to reach a consensus on more and more things.

But the Founders explicitly did not create the United States as a democracy.  (Read the Federalist Papers throughout for proof of that.  I could cite some places, but if you haven’t read them, you should.)

The United States was founded on the core belief that God gave unalienable rights to human beings.  Governments only exist to secure those rights to its people. 

Now that is a particularly religious statement, and specifically Christian.  No other religion or philosophy has unalienable rights.  So our nation has a particular Christian foundation.  If we lose that, we will lose what it is that made us what we are. 

I don’t think religious people are any more demanding of getting their way than any other group in our country.  And I think it would wrong and even unwise to silence them just because they are religious.  One problem of our current society is that we are so quick to throw off the wisdom of the ages and to create new values and rules, and we revile anyone who might question them. 

Don’t be so hard on religious people.  You might end up thanking them later.

Quit Whining about Taxes on Imports

I am tired about hearing all the whining in the newspapers and media about taxing imports.  Most of these imports are products that we used to make here with American jobs, but they left because we stopped taxing things made somewhere else. 

The papers and media whine, because they say consumer prices will go up if we tax imports.

 

But what about all our American companies?  We tax them.  You think that these taxes on American companies don’t raise the prices of consumer goods?  And guess who actually pays the corporate profits of American companies.  Right, the American consumer!

Taxing imports is only fair.  If you are worried about higher consumer prices, then stop taxing American corporations. 

Bait and switch politics in Illinois

Illinois has placed the question of a graduated income tax on the election ballot for the citizens to vote on. 

The problem is that they are selling this to the public as a tax only on those making over $250,000 a year, and all others would see either no increase or a decrease.

But they didn’t put that as part of their ballot issue.  The ballot doesn’t read that the graduated income tax will only apply to those making over $250K and everyone else will not see an increase.

No, everyone will have a graduated income tax.  And the rates aren’t a part of the ballot either. 

It’s a lot harder to raise taxes when everyone pays the same rate.  When everyone pays a different rate, it just became a lot easier. 

The Overlooked Abortion Question

The abortion debate will never end. 

Why?

Because some people start from the mother’s point of view, and other people start from the baby’s point of view.  If you start from the mother’s point of view, you favor her control of her life.  If you start from the baby’s point of view, you want to protect it at all costs.

One side sees it as a rights issue; the other side sees it as a moral issue.

There is, however, another important issue that is being overlooked. 

One side is insisting that the other side pay for its work.  And since, as the courts have ruled, money is speech, one side is compelling the other side to speak on its behalf.

That is contrary to the founding principles of our country.  Free speech is not compelled speech. 

The government has no right to compel people who believe abortion is morally wrong to pay for it.

ending the violence in Chicago

“Today’s such a beautiful day, it makes me want to go out and shoot somebody.”

Mayor Lightfoot doesn’t see a magic wand to end the violence in Chicago.  (Mayor: No ‘Magic Wand’ for Violence, May 29)  But I do think that we need to look again at what we regard as the sources of the problem and what is usually offered as solutions.

This has been going on for a very long time, so I don’t expect an easy or quick solution, though most of it is gang-related, and I don’t ever hear of anything focusing on them.

I do think the first step is to stop blaming other people.  It’s the government’s fault for not spending enough money on after school programs or a thousand other things, it’s investors’ fault for not thinking their neighborhoods are good investments, it’s businesses’ fault for not wanting to locate in high crime areas, it’s white people’s fault for fearing that crime will follow when minorities move into their neighborhoods, it’s politicians’ fault for not spending enough money on our schools. 

Of course, all the above makes life a little harder for the people involved, but if the problem at root is because of other people, then you’ve locked yourself into a situation with little hope of getting out.  If you have to compel other people to do things for you, they will never do enough, it will never be enough, and you will always feel victimized.   

So what should you do?  When you realize that nobody’s going to come in and save you, then you start thinking of what you can do.  The obvious staring places are churches or other already established community organizations.  And a lot of people who never thought of themselves as leaders will need to get up, stand up, and speak up. 

Don’t look for me to give you an answer, though I do have some suggestions.  The first step in solving a problem is realizing that you are the one who has to solve it.

why we need immigrants

A Tribune writer (May 29) urges the United States to bring in more immigrants to make up for the low birth rate in our country.  With a low birth rate, the population ages, and the costs for caring for the elderly falls to fewer people. 

The problem is that with our current immigration policies, immigrants can, and do, bring in their extended family, which essentially parallels the existing demographics in our country, thus essentially nullifying a big reason for immigration in the first place.

 

If immigration only pertained to young(er) workers and not to elderly and other non-working relatives, immigration could help alleviate the aging crisis.

I think a better answer would be to encourage families more in our country and address the reasons why we don’t.  My parents had 5 kids, and my mother didn’t have to work.  My dad was a tradesman. 

What happened to our economy that makes it so hard now to support a family on what we make?

The right to an abortion

I would like to suggest another approach to the abortion debate. 

The subject is routinely presented as a right – a woman has the right to end the life of her child if she does it before he or she is born.  You can quibble about the viability of the child, the size of it during the first three months, or whether it was conceived under undesirable circumstances, and it is all really meaningless, because the abortion movement has totally passed that, now insisting that the mother has the right to end the child’s life even after it is born. 

Once the right to an abortion has been established, it will not allow or accept any restrictions.  It may have done so at first to pave the way, but once the way was paved, the outcome was assured. 

Now this is where it gets a little tricky. 

There are only two kinds of rights: unalienable rights and government-given rights. 

The Declaration of Independence says that our county was founded on unalienable rights given to us by God  These rights precede and supersede government.  Government cannot give them, and government cannot take them away.  Unalienable rights are things you can do without the government’s permission, interference, or restriction.

But our leaders and our society have been slowly rejecting and eliminating these rights, quietly so nobody gets riled.  Why would it do that?  Because they come from God, and we have to reject God publicly in society today. 

And more than that, it is the Christian God who gave unalienable rights.  No other religion has this.

The other kind of rights is what the government gives people.   A right to a quality public education is not an unalienable right.  It is one created by the government.

Now here is where the problem lies. 

Abortion rights are treated as unalienable rights.  We need abortion access laws, we’re told, because we have rights that precede and supersede government. 

Is that true?  Is abortion a right given by God?  The only source of information about the Christian God is the Bible.  There children, all children, are a gift from God.  They are described as being handcrafted by God in their mother’s womb.  Several notable people were called by God while they were in the womb to some noble work for God.  So does the Bible support or condone abortion?  Ah, no.

So if God did not give humans the right to end the child’s life while still in the womb, then it is the government’s decision.  That is to say, you can’t argue that the government must allow it because there is the right to an abortion, but it is the government’s legalizing the act that creates the right.  And it is not an inviolable right.  It can be taken away at a later date. 

Once God is removed from the abortion discussion, as our society insists, then there will never be a resolution to the discussion, because there is no common ground. 

But all that to say that there is no right to an abortion apart from what the government dictates.

Should the government control insurance rates?

The Sun-Times editorial (“Quit overcharging women for auto insurance” May 20) touches on a big question in public policy: how much should the people most directly affected by something be responsible for paying for it?

Some examples: People who drive on the tollway pay a fee to use it.  People who don’t drive on the tollway don’t pay it.  Everybody pays taxes to pay for schools, even if you don’t currently have children who use them.  Should smokers and drinkers pay more for health insurance than those who don’t smoke or drink?  Isn’t that sometimes sold as an incentive for people to take better care of their health?

The Sun-Times believes that gender is not an appropriate factor for charging different insurance rates, even though the insurance industry notes a distinct difference between average male and female behavior on something that directly affects insurance costs.

The Times seems to suggest that either insurance companies don’t like women or that they should not look at all the data that drives their costs. 

The bottom line, of course, is that if the rate for women buying insurance goes down, the rate for men will go up, even though on average their behavior produces less costs to the insurance companies.  In other words, their good behavior will go unrewarded and may result in their foregoing of that which will then drive up insurance costs for everybody. 

If the cost for auto insurance is too high, then let the competition force it down.  The government does too much meddling into the affairs of private businesses.  In a competitive market, companies know exactly what their costs are, what they need to take in to be profitable, and what they can charge and retain their customer base.  They have no guarantee they’ll even be in business in five years. 

segregation, schools, and funding - a response to Jesse Jackson

Jesse Jackson is always a good read, even if you aren’t always satisfied with his conclusions.

Such is the case with his latest article (65 years after Brown v. Board of Education, we risk going backward – May 14).  It is a plea to our country to do better, but I think he unnecessarily loses some necessary sympathy from his readers along the way.

He insists, agreeing with a Supreme Court decision, that segregated schools are inherently unequal and unconstitutional. 

Are all-girl and all-boy schools unequal and unconstitutional as well?  It seems there’s quite a demand for all-girl schools, but people do have a problem with all boy schools.  I was glad that I could attend an all-boy high school when I was younger.

USNews ranks 80 historically black colleges and universities.  I didn’t check each one, but I’m guessing they are all black by choice rather than by government edict.

There’s a difference between a school being all black, because they weren’t allowed to go to the school of their choice and being all black because that is what they chose.  Technically, under Jackson’s definition, it’s still segregated, unequal, and unconstitutional.

Brown vs. Board of Education is not law.  The Supreme Court cannot make laws.  Only the legislature can do that.  Art. 1, Sec. 1, right at the beginning of our Constitution.

He is correct to note the disparity in school funding between rich white towns and poor black towns.

The answer is not to bus the poor black children to rich white areas, because, well, there are far more poor black children than there is room in rich white schools.  The answer is also not to take the money that the rich paid for their schools and send it to poor black areas.  Why?  Because they paid it for their schools.  It’s definitely not American to try to improve one person’s school by making another person’s school worse.

The problem is that in Illinois we rely too much on property taxes to fund schools.  And why is that?  Because the politicians in Illinois for too long have seen their positions in power as a golden opportunity to enrich themselves at the public expense. 

But the simple answer is to establish a basic level of school funding to be paid for through the income tax.  Then allow the school districts to raise more money through property taxes or other means.

Jackson laments that schools are segregated, because our neighborhoods are segregated.  What he forgets is that in a free country, people can move where they want.  If a neighborhood is segregated, it’s not so much because certain people can’t move in, it’s that certain other people move out when certain other people move in.  Is that bad?  Perhaps so, but that is a price of freedom. 

Improve the schools through better funding.  I have fought for this for years, but nobody is interested.  Pay for a desired level of school funding through the income tax.  Allow school districts raise more however they like.  And cut property taxes by the amount raised through income taxes.

The Separation of Church and State is Not What You Think

For generations now we have been told that religion must be absent from public life and policy, because there is a firm and large wall between church and state, or between religion and state, or anything to do with God and public life. 

Now the very idea of a separation of church and state doesn’t even come from the Constitution but from a letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote about 16 years later.  That letter has been the source of a lot of scrutiny and debate, but we don’t need to even go there to settle the debate.

Everybody knows that the United States is the country of rights.  Ask any immigrant, whether he has been here for 30 years or just entered the country.  This is why they come, and no other nation has more people who want to go there than the United States.

But there are 2 kinds of rights.  And this is where the problem lies.  We don’t talk about this anymore, in our schools or in the halls of Congress.  It’s just all about rights. 

Rights as commonly understood today are things that the government is required to see that you have.  And the list keeps growing.

You have a right to an affordable house, you have a right to health care, you have a right to a good education, you have a right to live in a good neighborhood,  you have a right to a living wage, you have a right to a basic income, and the list goes on and on and grows with every election cycle.

This kind of rights requires the government to oversee just about everything and to spend enormous amounts of money, which means that the American people must pay enormous amounts of money in taxes to pay for all this.  This is the main reason our federal government is $22 trillion in debt.

But this is not the kind of rights that our country was founded on.  Our country was founded on unalienable rights, which precede and supersede government.  Unalienable rights are things you can do without the government’s permission or regulation, like the right to freedom of speech, the right to peacefully assemble, the right to the free exercise of religion, the right of a free press, and the right to keep and bear arms. 

What is forgotten, misunderstood, or left out in all this is the fact that government cannot give you unalienable rights.  Unalienable rights can only come from God.  And specifically, the God of the Bible and Christianity and Judaism.  No other religion has unalienable rights.

So without the government acknowledgement that our country is founded on the Bible and Judeo-Christian beliefs, you don’t have unalienable rights.  You only have what rights the government deems to give you.  So when they say that we live in a secular country, they are essentially saying that there is no such thing as unalienable rights.  At least not in this country. 

So while the number of government-given rights are growing all the time, what were long considered unalienable rights are being restricted.  Slowly and gradually.  Your right to free speech is being restricted if somebody might be offended by what you say.  Your right to keep and bear arms is being restricted in multiple ways in the name of safety, as a secular nation seeks to cope with the violence of a nation not governed by the Bible principles of love, forgiveness, and self-restraint.  Your right to free exercise of religion is restricted if your religious beliefs now conflict with the higher moral values of secularism, or political correctness.

And this push to downplay unalienable rights for government-given rights is also a major driving force behind the push for socialism in our country today.  We used to be responsible for our own lives; now the government is. 

But, but, but   what about the First Amendment where it says that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion?  The phrase establishment of religion is strange to us today but was well-known at that time.  It had to do with a church that was the official church of the state or nation, like they had and still have in England today, the Church of England, often supported financially by them as well.  Notice that the First Amendment says that Congress shall not make such a law.  Many of the original states had established churches until they realized that they were doing the very thing many of them had fled from when they came to the New World.

We cannot separate God or Christianity from our government and public life, because our very existence as a free nation depends on it.

Things to remember about tariffs

Tariffs are often in the news, and they are always pictured as something bad.  Really bad.  We may have to pay more for something when we go to the store.

But we forget some things, if we ever knew them at all.

1)         Taxes on imports paid for almost our entire federal budget for most of our nation’s history.  We didn’t even have an income tax until 1913.  Which would you rather pay: an income tax with hours and hours of filling out forms and going through a ton of paperwork, or paying a little more for something that you buy?

2)         When we stopped taxing imports, millions of good paying jobs left our country, and the middle class shrunk dramatically. 

3)         We got cheaper products, but we paid a lot in taxes to pay for people who now depended on government assistance.

4)         We don’t make anything here anymore.  Try to find something made in America beside small novelty items.  Maybe it’s just me, but I find that a little embarrassing as a nation.  It was American industry that saved us during World War 2.  Now we make China rich by buying from them all kinds of things that we used to make here.  And they are one of the reasons we have to spend so much on our military. 

I think we should bring all the jobs back to America.  American companies shouldn’t have to go out of the country to make their products.   You can always make something cheaper somewhere in the world, but I think we lose more than we gain when we do.

The Bible in public schools

A reader to the Times complained today about efforts to bring the Bible back to public schools (May 13).  Oh, wait.  The reader didn’t say ‘bring back,’ just ‘bring.’  He seems unaware that the Bible played a prominent role in public education for most of our nation’s history.  It took a Supreme Court decision in the early 60s to stop that, almost 200 years after our nation’s founding.

And why would the Bible be a part of public education at all? 

Our nation was founded basically on the principle that God gave unalienable rights to human beings.  Now where did our Founders get such an idea?  Some point to Enlightenment Philosophy, but philosophy can never tell you that God did anything.  The Founders got that from the Bible.  In fact, no other religion teaches about that.  So, yes, there is a reason why the Bible was used in public schools rather than the Quran.  The Quran doesn’t talk about unalienable rights, which are essential to the American way of life.

Unalienable rights focus on freedom and liberty.  But you can’t have freedom and liberty in a society without a very high personal moral code.  That would only create chaos and anarchy. 

So the same Bible that speaks of unalienable rights also provides that moral code: the Ten Commandments, Love your neighbor as yourself, and Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.

The reader notes “how ignorant our society is of the principles and procedures that encompass our government.” 

The first principles we need to learn about our government are from the Declaration of Independence: God gave unalienable rights to human beings, and we form governments to protect those rights, and when it fails to do that, we have the right to alter or abolish it and make a new one that does.  And this is precisely where we are now with relation to our government. 

Shooting children

I often have strong reactions to the news, but today’s article “Daddy, am I on the list of children to be shot?” May 13 prompted a much stronger reaction that usual.  Downright anger.

Anger at the direction that our country has taken over my lifetime.  It was the court called supreme that got the whole rolling with a number of rulings that removed God from public life. 

That court more than anyone should have known that our country was founded on the principle that God gave human beings unalienable rights.  The Court would call that today a religious opinion; our Founders called that a fact. 

Guns have always been a major part of American life, and the Founders called that a good thing.  We were armed and free, unlike those in Europe who were unarmed and ruled by kings and dictators.

We were also governed by a moral code of loving our neighbors and doing unto others as we would have others do unto us, plus, of course, the Ten Commandments that taught us that we are accountable for our actions to a Much Higher Power.

 

All these school shootings are the result of an arrogant society that thinks it can rule and control itself apart from a moral code given to us by the One who created us, who knows human nature better than we do, a society that thinks it can ignore God and still find utopia. 

F-bombs

The Tribune published a major column asking the question: “When did everyone start dropping F-bombs?” May 13   I think the author was actually looking for the answer to another question: Why are so many prominent people dropping the F-bomb in public? 

For most of our nation’s history, we had a moral code that was based on the Bible.  We had the Ten Commandments, Love your neighbor as yourself, and Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.

But the court called supreme called all that religious baloney, and so they were not fitting for a secular society.  Baloney was not their choice of words, but it could have been.

Our society, with the Court’s prompting, developed a moral code intentionally devoid of anything having to do with God, because one that did would not be fitting for a society that considers itself at the high end of the evolutionary process. 

And what great moral code did it create to replace the old moral code: tolerance, equality, fairness, and diversity.  Definitely much better than all that talk about actually loving your neighbor.

But back to the original question.  The F-bomb is modern society’s way of saying good riddance to that stifling, burdensome old moral code that dared to tell us things we ought not to do.

The public bashing of Joe Ricketts in a free society

I think it’s time to end the public bashing and shaming of Joe Ricketts.

Islam is not a race; it is a religion.  To call him a racist for having problems with Islam is irresponsible. 

Islam is a religion that has been around for almost 1500 years.   If that is not a proper subject of discussion or criticism in a free society, then our society is no longer free.  And Ricketts’ comments were not even public comments.

 

If we are to be condemned publicly for things we say in private, then indeed we are no longer a free country.

today's newspaper and today's society

I saw 4 articles in the paper today (May 9) that spoke volumes about what kind of society we have become today, and it’s not pretty.  At least in my mind.

The headline, the most important story of the day, was about someone who made a hand signal that was deemed to be offensive and hateful.  This person had to be banned from Wrigley Field for life. 

I’m going to guess that this person, if he was indeed a hater, continues to be a hater after the ban.  As a society, we can’t fix hatred as we currently conduct it, so we just ban various expressions of it and somehow we pretend that we fixed the problem.

Then there was an article about a police officer who touched a woman on the butt, gave two women hugs, and a third he actually held her wrist and raised her arm, all without the women’s consent.  And for this he was charged with three felony counts of official misconduct and one felony count of aggravated battery?  Really? 

Reading the whole story, I would say the man could be fired for conduct unbefitting a police officer.  He clearly intimidated the women without just cause. 

I’m not minimizing sexual misbehavior it, but our society has exaggerated it beyond any norm of common sense

Which brings us to the neverending Russell Addison saga.  He was accused of domestic violence by his ex-wife a long time ago.  Why is the date important?  Because if he had broken the law, that should have been resolved by now.

 

It seems domestic violence is the new unpardonable sin, and Russell Addison must be punished forever, or at least until he loses any chance of making a career from the one thing he is good at.  Is that the goal here?

And lastly there is, again, Joe Ricketts, blasted again, because he thinks Islam is a danger to Western Civilization.  You may disagree with that assessment, but you’re wrong to try to shame him with such words like bigot, racist, or Islamophobe. 

Is there a common theme here?  I would say yes.  Our society has elevated certain values beyond what they should be, and then it quickly and severely seeks to punish the offenders, but it is incapable of solving the underlying problems.  It just tries to stifle any expression of it and thinks we’re a better society for it.

We don’t know how to teach love instead of hate.  We don’t know how to teach kindness and respect for women, only the need for consent.  We don’t know how to forgive people.  We will dig things up from the past and never expect a person could ever change.  And we try to shame people we disagree with without trying to understand what they are saying.  We need to do better as a society.

Suicides in Kids

Suicide is the second leading cause of death for U.S. teens (Study: Kids’ suicides spiked after Neflix’s ’13 Reasons,’ Chicago Sun-Times, May 8). 

The article didn’t have much to say what we can do about this except starting a conversation and encouraging adults to connect with young people.  Ask them how they are coping with the ups and downs of life.

And then what do you tell them?

We have been told for years that we are a secular country that can’t discuss religion in public for risk of offending someone or causing anyone to think that our government might have a recommendation here.

The fact is that our country was founded on Christianity.  Yes, it’s true.  The Declaration of Independence says that our Founders wanted to create a new country founded on 5 beliefs, one of which is that God gave unalienable rights to human beings.  The other four are important, but this is clearly the linchpin.

But the belief that God gave unalienable rights to human beings is unique to Christianity.  Without Christianity, you don’t have unalienable rights, and without unalienable rights you don’t have the United States of America.

But as for 13 year olds who might be considering suicide, I would think it is a lot better to tell them that they are uniquely created by God in God’s image and that God loves them more than they will ever know or understand than that human life is an accident of nature, and that people are nothing more than chemical reactions. 

We need to restore our country to its founding roots, first to restore us to what we were created to be as a country, and to restore our people to wholeness where they can find value in their own lives and the lives of others.

Comprehensive Immigration Reform

Have you noticed?  Everything Congress wants to do has to be comprehensive.  If a bill is less than a thousand pages, it just doesn’t seem worth the trouble.

There are a number of problems with this approach:

1)         Few people read the whole bill.  Just too long, and there is never enough time to do it.

2)         When a bill is this long, how can you debate it?  You can’t.  There are just too many issues that need to be discussed, and there isn’t enough time to do it.

3)         You end up with a lot of things you don’t like.  They call it compromise.  I call it chicanery, or just another form of deception.  I see it a lot in local politics.  You want five, so you ask for ten.  They give you your five, and everybody is happy.   Except that you didn’t want that five in the first place, but you felt you had to do it as a compromise just to get something that you wanted. 

If all this seems a suitable way to do business in government, please, go do something else. 

You don’t trade things you don’t want to get things you do.  You debate each item on its own merits.  Bills should be short enough to read and to debate.

Having said that, there is an issue that can and should be resolved in a similar manner:  DACA.

And here’s the offer:  We will allow all those people who have been brought here as children by parents who entered the country illegally to become legal residents with a path to citizenship under these conditions:

1)         This offer will not apply to anyone who enters the country after this offer is made public.

2)         The border must be secured first.  If the Democrats have a better plan than the President, then we give them, say, four months to do it.  The time is negotiable.  They don’t need to build anything, so it shouldn’t take that long.

 

If the border is not secure in that time, then the President gets full funding for his way of securing the border.

3)         Any person who receives permanent legal status will count against the total number of legal immigrants we allow into the country.  A highly qualified immigrant from another source will take precedence over a less qualified DACA recipient.

4)         All DACA recipients will be screened individually for health, criminal background, and functionality.  Meaning, will they be an asset to our country or a liability?  We should have a right to refusal.

The Bigger Problem with a Graduated Income Tax that Nobody is Talking About

Do you shop at 4 different grocery stores, because one has cheaper milk and another has cheaper produce?  Does it bother you that the rich pay the same as you for a gallon of milk?

What?  Oh, you hadn’t thought of that?

Everything in life costs the same to everybody except it seems for government.  Here they want to charge you according to what they think you can afford. 

So everything in life is a heavier burden to pay the lower your income is.  A hundred-dollar food bill hurts you more if you’re making $400 a week than if you were making $800 a week. 

So while this is a reality in every area of life, the government of Illinois wants to change this with regard to taxes.  Five per cent of your income for taxes is a heavier burden to bear the less money you make.  For a richer person, it’s more of a minor inconvenience.

There is a problem here though. 

When we have a graduated income tax, the government decides how much of our own money we get to keep.  The government decides if you have made enough money.  The government decides if you have too much money.  The government acts as if the money belongs to them, and they decide how big your allowance will be.

We have turned freedom on its head, and it’s no longer We the People whom the government serves, but it is we who serve the government. 

We are slowly, gradually giving away our freedoms to the government, but because it is happening slowly, nobody is alarmed, nobody is concerned, it all seems so inevitable.

government involvement with businesses

The Chicago Tribune printed a letter (May 6) which it clearly endorsed that advocated that government tell businesses how to run their business.  No, it wasn’t a government mandate yet on the day-to-day operations of businesses, but the writer believes the government has the right and the duty to require Illinois-based companies to put more women and minorities on their corporate boards.

Is there a problem with this?  Well, yes.

I can think of several. 

First of all, the article asserts that corporate board diversity is good for business, and we need a law to see that they do it.  If it is good for business, you really think they don’t want to do it because they don’t like women or minorities?  Or do you think they just don’t know it’s good for them, and they need the government to do for them what they are unable to do for themselves?

A business has no guarantee of a future.  It must constantly evaluate what it’s doing and adapt to changing circumstances to stay in business.  And the government thinks it knows what’s best for the companies, something they just didn’t think of before, or just rejected against their better judgment, because of what, prejudice? 

What makes people in government so much smarter than the people who are running the businesses on how to run a business? 

And, secondly, it’s not the place of government to meddle in private businesses.  More than that, government doesn’t have the right to meddle in a private business.  [The article specifically mentions publicly owned businesses, as if that should make a difference.]  If a business is breaking a law, selling unsafe products, or making employees work in unsafe conditions, then enforce the law.  But then, of course, don’t just make laws where you can meddle in someone’s business. 

Businesses start when people with ideas invest money in a new enterprise.  Eighty per cent of new businesses fail, and there is no money-back guarantee.  And even when a business succeeds, as in, makes a profit, expands, and becomes established, it has no guarantee how long it will be in business.  The last thing a business needs is someone who is not a part of the business telling them how to run their business. 

If government were a business, it would have been out of business a long time ago.  What makes them think they can tell somebody else how to run a business?

We are a nation of immigrants. So what exactly does that mean?

If you ever get into a discussion about immigration or read an article about it, you will soon encounter the expression:  We are a nation of immigrants.

 

The question has to be asked: Just what exactly does that mean?

To me, it can only mean one of three things. 

1)         We are a nation built on the premise that we invite everyone to come here, and our nation continually evolves as everyone from all over the world contributes their own unique perspectives to the whole. 

The problem with this is that you would expect something like this to be spelled out in our founding documents.  It’s an interesting idea, but where did it come from?  It’s a statement that goes to the heart of what America is, so you need to have some government founding document to support that.  There is nothing in the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, or the Declaration of Independence that gives any clue to such a concept.

2)         The second option is the idea that the only true Americans were the Indians who lived here prior to the arrival of the Europeans.  Anyone else who came here plus all their descendants are all immigrants.

OK, but this was an English colony for 150 years prior to the Revolution.  I don’t know how many people from around the world wanted to flock to an English colony.  Then the Founders went to war with England in order to form a new government.  Well, what exactly was this country that they went to war in order to be able to create?  Was it a nation where everyone would be encouraged to come here and bring their culture so we can create a culture that combines the best of all of them?

If it was, I would think it would say so somewhere.  So what do the founding documents actually say what our country is all about?  See the third option.

3)         The third option, which does explain the statement, is that our nation was unique among the nations, and it was attractive to millions of people who then wanted to come here.  They wanted what we had and knew that we welcomed new people.

But what exactly was it that we had?

What we had were unalienable rights.  And this came from the Bible and the moral code necessary for having a country where everyone had unalienable rights also came from the Bible.  You cannot have great freedom without great personal moral responsibility. 

So the freedom is what attracted the millions of people to come here, and when they came, we taught them the founding principles and the moral code.

We do neither today.  So frankly I would like to see a pause or a significant slowdown on immigration until we get our house in order.