Extremism

We describe our political parties as right and left.  If I were on the left, I would complain about that, because right has another meaning than simply pointing in a certain direction.

Those on the right are routinely called extremists.  They are not merely right, but far right. 

Barry Goldwater, the Republican candidate for President in 1964, is often cited even today as the epitome of extremism.  His acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention is still quoted today:  “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice; moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”

And, of course, Barry Goldwater is not the primary target here that we are being warned about.

But let me tell you what I find extreme today in politics.

I think it is extreme when we allow anybody who shows up at our border into our country.  No background checks, no medical exams.  Then we put them up in hotels and give them public money to live on.  Did they ask anybody if they should do this?  We have allowed over 2 million people to come into our country this year alone, but one party insists, they encourage, people from all over the world to just come in, and we don’t know who they are.  And nobody cares, and nobody wants you to know about this.

I think it’s extreme that so many people think they have a right to kill their unborn babies, and they will loudly and threateningly protest this in the streets.  Remember the protests in front of the houses of the Supreme Court justices?  A right?  In America, our rights come from God.  You think God regards human life as disposable?  The other rights are only what is legal or things the government decides to do.  Government can’t create rights, because government can just as well eliminate that right.

I think it’s extreme that there is no limit to government spending.  We are now $31 trillion in debt, and nobody cares.  At least one political party.  We spend a trillion dollars a year just to pay interest on that debt.  That’s essentially wasting a trillion dollars a year.  That’s insane. 

And I think it is extreme to erase the very idea of sex and replace it with gender identity.  The same people who have been insisting for the last two years to follow the science now want to deny science to normalize what can only be described as an aberration of the highest sort.

And these are the people who criticize the other party for being extreme.

microaggressions

Reading a newspaper is an exercise in self-restraint and time management.  Most times the headlines tell me all I need to know, including how much time I should spend on the article.

Today we had Finding a haven – and microaggression – in greater Bronzeville.  (September 11)

I did read the first three paragraphs, but it didn’t hold my interest.

The title did, which is why I am writing.

The key word here is microaggression.  Note the first part – micro.  That means something that is really, really tiny.  Things that normally we would just overlook.  But today people are looking for reasons to be offended.  That’s sad.

If you want a perfect world, you will have to wait for heaven. 

But wait.

I hear they discriminate there.  They don’t just let everybody into heaven.  Then it wouldn’t be heaven, would it?

We live in America.  The freest country in the history of the world.  With freedom comes messy.  The fact is that not everybody is going to like you.  For whatever reason.  If you want to make sure that nobody is able to express any displeasure with another person, you can simply cut those freedoms in half.  And hire a lot of people to go around looking for and punishing those offenders, and then you find your economic freedom diminished too through ever-increasing taxes. 

Our country’s moral code used to be the Ten Commandments.  There are prohibitions against stealing, killing, adultery, lying, and coveting.  If we did none of those things, our society would be a lot better off than it is now.

Micro-aggressions, selfishness, unkindness, and spite didn’t make the list.

The Workers' Rights Amendment

So the Tribune prints two letters in favor of the Workers’ Rights Amendment with none opposing, suggesting that any sound person would support this.  (I support Workers’ Rights Amendment, Fearmongering over amendment, September 11)

In general, workers’ rights are good.  What is not mentioned is that this Amendment also covers public sector workers.  Private sector employers always have both feet in reality.  They know just how much they can afford to pay workers.  Public sector employers have no such limitation.  They have no sense of money or fiscal responsibility.  Going into ever-deeper debt is always good political policy.

Our state is essentially bankrupt.  It’s forbidden by law I believe to actually say so.  Its pension clause, also a Constitutional Amendment, guarantees that all our taxes will continue to grow exponentially. 

This proposed Amendment is another safeguard against any possible reforms to Illinois’ financial crisis and mismanagement.

 

The Workers Rights Amendment

In the November election this fall, the Workers Rights Amendment will appear on the ballot in Illinois.  If you don’t live in Illinois, you should be aware of this, because it may come to your state.

On the surface, it sounds like a wonderful idea.  It champions the idea that workers should have the right to organize in order to negotiate their working conditions.  Sounds fair.  I worked in union shops much of my life.  I like unions.

The problem is with unions of government employees.  The workers theoretically have that same right, but who are they negotiating their conditions with?

Private sector employers are bound by fiscal reality.  They cannot pay what they can’t afford.  Government no longer sees that as a problem.  They will make promises well beyond their revenues, or what they can afford, and then borrow the money as long as they can before they have to raise taxes again, and they will say, well, people voted overwhelmingly in favor of workers rights. 

They didn’t tell the voters the full ramifications of what they were voting for.

In 1970, Illinois passed a provision in its state Constitution that is currently bankrupting the state, a clause about government pensions.  The state promised money they couldn’t afford.  Now there is pressure on state taxes, income and property, to pay for mounting pension debt. 

In typical government fashion, they want to make a blanket ironclad rule that applies to everybody without telling you about the cases where this could be a real problem. 

I am afraid this Amendment will pass, because people see the good but not the whole picture.  Like telling everybody that everybody has a right to a higher education.  Sounds good until you figure out how to pay for it.

In reality, this is people in government taking advantage of the system to enrich themselves and fellow government workers who will then work and contribute to keep those first people in office so they can further enrich themselves at the public’s expense.

Sex Education in Public Schools

The Federal Government wants to be involved in the sexual education of your child.  They have written their standards for this education, and Illinois was one of the first states to adopt them.  If you live in other states, you might want to see where your state stands on this issue.  The Federal Government didn’t write them for itself. 

This doesn’t mean that every public school in Illinois will use them, but you should assume they do until proven otherwise.

You should know what they are, and if you know parents of children in public education, if you care about any of them, you might want to talk to them about this.

The new standards tell our kids that there is no such thing as normative sex.  Vaginal, anal, and oral sex are all equal sexual relationships.  So essentially kids have to try them all to see which they like best.  I would expect that biology would at least suggest that sexual organs are reproductive organs, but in fact they are merely pleasure tools for instant gratification.  If by chance a pregnancy occurs, no worry, we have an answer for that.

They are taught that sex was “assigned” at birth, and, really, they shouldn’t have done that.  Only you know what gender or sex you are. 

They are conflating gender with sex.  Maybe not all at once, but that’s the goal.  Boys can have vaginas, and girls can have penises. 

By the end of second grade, they want to diminish the value of the nuclear family by equating it with every variation and combination of adults.  Essentially, the idea is to affirm that a nuclear family is not necessarily something they should strive for or even want to have.  It is not better than other forms of family.  There are other options just as good.  So begin thinking about them.

They will also know the meaning of gender and gender identity, but it’s not your parent’s idea of gender.  Gender and biology are distinct from each other.

By fifth grade, they will learn to “distinguish between sex assigned at birth and gender identity” and “how they may or may not differ.”

They will “define sexual orientation” and “differentiate between sexual orientation and gender identity.”  And they will also learn “the range of ways pregnancy can occur.”  No need to limit your thinking to the traditional way.

The entire idea of male and female, man and woman, is outdated.  The concept of marriage between a man and a woman is just stereotypical and harmful to portray that as the ideal.

But actually the worst part of all this is that children are essentially being asked to choose a gender identity and sexual orientation long before they have ever even given any thought to whether they want children of their own, and before they even reach puberty and they see how they respond to the opposite sex. 

I consider that criminal child abuse. 

Oh, school districts can opt out of the program.  I have learned from a former health teacher in middle school in Illinois that the administration hid much of this information from the parents, so they did not know what they were getting when they opted in for the program.  You might want to check on that too.

Another look at religion and government

A reader of a local newspaper had a strong reaction against Darren Bailey, the Republican candidate for governor.  She felt that Bailey was injecting his religious beliefs into public policy. 

This reader is an abortion advocate, and she cites the Talmud as justification for her beliefs.  So essentially her religion formed her opinion on a public policy issue, and she is doing what she thinks Bailey should not.

We use the word ‘religion’ often when discussing politics, but I don’t think we fully understand what religion is.

Yes, a religion is a system of beliefs about God.  But that is a very narrow understanding of it.

A religion is a worldview.  It’s an all-encompassing description of life, what is good, what is bad, what is right, what is wrong, what is truth, what is false, what are the rules, are there any rules.

The fact is that everybody has a worldview.  Every country has a worldview.  It’s a system of beliefs that guide how it governs itself.

Religions are worldviews that include God as being a part of reality, actually a major part of reality. 

Our country is trying to impose a worldview on everybody that doesn’t include God.  And a lot of people are having a problem with that.  The reader’s worldview says that preborn babies are nothing.  The Bible puts an enormous value on preborn children.  Not only are they created in the image of God, but their whole future lives are already seen in God’s eyes.

So who is trying to impose whose worldview on the rest of us?  She thinks that this only affects individual women facing an unwanted pregnancy.  But it doesn’t.  It’s a total devaluing of human life that can translate into, for example, violence toward other people, because we don’t see them as being in the image of God.  Life is disposable.   

Worldviews affect everything, from what should be taught in our public schools, the role of government and government spending, the propriety of private property, and the value of human life.  It’s hard to teach our kids the value of human life apart from religion. 

Science can’t tell us the value of a human life.  All it can say is that life is an accident of nature, and the only purpose to life is to reproduce.  Life is also about the survival of the fittest, and all the countries that have embraced atheism have killed millions of their own people because they didn’t fit into their scheme of things, and they have been the most intolerant of those people who did believe in God.

We have representative government, and people who have a religious worldview have as much right to representation as any one else.  If there are differences of opinion, then let’s talk about them and try to understand why other people think the way they do. 

 

Climate Change: cause and cure

The climate is the most serious problem in the world right now.  Even more serious than racism.  I think.  But I’m white, so I could be wrong.

The single most important cause of climate change is carbon dioxide.

The recommended solution for this is to upend the entire world’s economy and reduce most of the world to poverty and starvation. 

Meanwhile, nobody is talking about the simplest way to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. 

Plant trees.  Trees use carbon dioxide for food and release oxygen as waste.  What a deal!

If this is the crisis this is, then we cannot rely on just one means of tackling the problem: the elimination of fossil fuels.  We must do everything possible.

Like, plant a billion trees. 

I remember years ago when I was attending college in the city and was sent to a clinic in Evanston.  I got off the train, and immediately I was struck by the freshness of the air.  Trees make a significant, noticeable difference. 

My question is: if this is so serious, why is nobody, nobody, talking about doing this?

Our earth went through a mini-Ice Age from around 1000 A.D. to 1500 A.D.  When all that ice was melting, and everyone was experiencing record hot temperatures and rising sea levels, I wonder if people were worrying.