Vote No on 6, But Only Out of Necessity

There are, as most voters in Michigan realize, several different statewide ballot proposals to consider in the coming election. Most of them do not merit serious thought, as they seek to clog up the Michigan Constitution and dangerously tie the hands of lawmakers. Perhaps the worst of those is Proposal 6. It would require a vote of the people before the state could fund any international bridge crossing. It was brought on by Ambassador Bridge owner Matty Maroun.

There seems little reason to believe that this is nothing more than Maroun throwing a hissy fit. He hasn't been able to get his way on building a bridge himself, so he's trying to keep Lansing out of the business. But be that as it may, by itself the proposal has certain merits. There's no reason why a private business cannot build and maintain even an international crossing. It's what we have anyway with the current Detroit/Windsor bridge.

Yet despite that, there are practical issues. Canada has said that it won't allow a private bridge to be built, essentially on the grounds that only governments should control international crossings. The argument is weak, but it is what it is and there's not much Michigan voters can do about that. If another bridge is to be built, it will be built publicly. And, to be fair, the Canadians are willing to put up the lion's share of the funds.

The strongest reason to vote for this proposal is that it supports individual rights. Never mind that we may not care for the attitude of the individual behind it: right is right no matter what we personally think of even the persons involved. But the trouble with enshrining within the Michigan Constitution a popular vote on such things is that such things ought to be up to the Legislature. It's why we elect leaders: to scan the landscape and do the best they can under the circumstances they're facing. Making a major decision such as a bridge which can only help international traffic, international business, and international relations, ought to be left to elected representatives. If we don't like their choices, well, we get a choice on them during the regular elections.

It would be easy to vote for Proposal 6 if for no other reason than to support the idea that individuals with the money and the will should be allowed to finance even international crossings. But as there will be no new bridge that way, it seems a silly and counterproductive effort. It's best to vote no on 6, even if we must do it with a frown and a smirk.

Whither Equality?

We are in this world almost daily deluged with calls for equality. It all sounds so good, and everyone seems to want it. But there's only one problem with it.

We are not, any of us, really equal.

This is not to say that we are not political equals. Yet even that phrase leaves a bit of uncertainty: we are only equal because my vote should count as much as yours. That doesn't strike us as equality. It strikes us as justice.

In the same manner, as we have employed this tactic when talking about freedom, education, peace, and so forth, so too do we find that we must apply it to any calls for equality. We need to ask what the supporters of equality really mean. Because any absolute and final equality of circumstances must actually be something which applies only in very, very few cases. Take equal pay for equal work, for example. Notice that we are asking a question whose answer only applies to very strict and definite circumstances. A woman cancer doctor, 50 years old, with 20 years of practice, who graduated from the same schools with the same grades as a complimentary male cancer specialist in the same place of work, and with the same proficiency of work, should get the same pay. No rational mind would argue otherwise. But the case is so limited that only one answer is truly right anyway.

As to the other facet of the argument, well, calls for equality must ring hollow because, again, we are not equal. A brain surgeon isn't equal to a plumber, no matter how much more we want the latter when the faucet breaks or the basement floods, and no matter which is male or female. As a matter of decency, we should not automatically look well on the surgeon nor ill on the plumber. But yet again, that's a point about justice, not equality.

We could refine the case further, but we trust the point is made. When we are demanding equality we are often (if not in fact always) demanding justice. We are asking that we be treated rightly and properly in light of the circumstances which surround us. We are not asking for equality. We are asking for justice.

So, and we are sure many people may have grown tired of us asking yet we must, when you demand equality, do you really want that? If so, how? Why? For we need to remember that the only sure way to make folks equal is downward, to the where no one is above the lowest common denominator.

That the average person means equality in the sense of true justice we don't doubt. Still, it is when we use terms wrongly that we have the greatest troubles. It is then when the radical fringe of any given group may take the day. Yet when we clarify our thoughts, when we strive to end misunderstanding by calling things what they are, then, indeed, justice wins out. Isn't that what we really want?

Moderates are Conservative

New polling suggests pretty heavily that the Democrats and President Barack Obama need the so-called moderate vote in order to win elections, while the GOP can rely on the conservative vote quite readily. This can be interpreted in several ways, but perhaps the most insightful is this: moderates aren't really moderates, as a group, but, rather, lean towards more traditional and familiar thoughts whenever in doubt.

That makes sense, in the end. For when there is a crisis, don't most people act based on what they know? When President Reagan was elected back in 1980 to stem the tide of Democratic and hence more liberal leadership, what was his appeal? To make America great again, based on the traditional American values of individualism and hard work. When the GOP ran the tide last November, what was the big question: nothing less than obtrusive, interfering government trampling the rights of the people.

The moderates responded as they knew how, by throwing out those who did not support real American values. That's why conservatives don't have to appeal too overtly to the presumed middle: they aren't actually in the center after all. They are in fact more moderate to conservative rather than being between the left and the right as they are generally portrayed.

Given the fact that so few people, about 20 percent or one in five, call themselves liberal, and it seems that what we truly have in our nation today is an overall aversion to liberalism. Even the presumed center appears to harbor similar doubts about the left, seeing as the Democrats need to get about 60% of the middle of the road vote to win major elections. It is a telling statistic, and does not bode well for any long term success for the party of Jefferson and Jackson.

Of course, the Democratic Party left the beliefs of those American stalwarts behind eons ago. But that is a tale for another time.

On Being Good

One of the great debates between the Christian and the scientist is the degree to which we are animal or spiritual. Many scientists wish us to be wholly scientific in our approach to humanity and understanding of ourselves. It is really a rather shallow outlook on human nature or, even, the necessary consequences of a purely scientific view of who we are.

Science has apparently discovered the part of our brain which helps us to recognize justice. It thus asserts, at least in some quarters, that goodness is innate within us physically. Yet that attitude ignores a very real point. The possibility that good occurs in us naturally is an entirely different question from the judgment of what is good, or the expectation that people will do good.

How do we know what is good except to be able to judge it in our individual and societal actions? Or are our scientifically minded friends suggesting that we just 'do things' and they happen to be good? Either way, any judgment about good, any assertion that 'this is good' cannot come wholly or entirely from within ourselves; there are too many of us with too many of our own nuanced ideas of good and bad.

Or are you saying that everyone from childhood, without guidance of any kind (parental, societal, or spiritual) will necessarily elect to do good? No Lord of the Flies scenarios possible? To claim that we are innately good begs the question of why people (and it should be obvious that all people do bad things sometimes regardless of physical construction) do bad things. Why does the thief steal, if he knows in his heart and head that it's wrong? Further, what's free will, if we are born with, say, no choice but to do good? Indeed, if we have no choice but to do good, if it is 'just what we do' then even calling our actions good comes into question. What's so good about doing what we cannot help but do?

It should surprise no one that we are hard wired to recognize justice; we are, at the end of the day, physical as well as spiritual creatures. It should not be shocking news that a just and all knowing God in the very act of creation would make our physical selves able to recognize spiritual, eternal, and absolute truths, truths outside our own will, thus enabling us to see (so to speak) justice. That science has discovered as much enhances rather than detracts from our knowledge of God. It strengthens, not weakens, our relationship with Him. It makes our spiritual side and our physical side properly complimentary. It raises us from the mere animal into a higher plane of existence.

Science does not tell us who we are in our entirety. It only sets us on that road. How far we trail along that path is ultimately up to us. And the questions we discover along that way will not be answered empirically.

The Left Demands Schitzophrenic Religion

The left does not understand religion. It cries for the separation of Church and State on the one hand yet demands that religion do its job on the other. Well, you can't have it both ways.

When it comes to feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, and providing medical care, liberals very easily remind Christians of their Christian duty. It's almost droll: when these issues are raised, you know you're supposed to be doing this and that, aren't you, Christians? Yet mention the right to life or the sanctity of marriage, and Christians are scaling that false wall of separation.

It simply cannot be both ways. If you're going to insist that the Church live up to Its call then you cannot also tell Her that She cannot preach the entire call. If feeding the hungry is a moral good despite, perhaps, being a duty in which religious practice is steeped, then so too is defending the unborn. If housing the homeless is a moral good based to a great degree on religious sentiment, then so to is the recognition of marriage as between one man and one woman.

Likewise, you cannot demand that Christians leave their duty to their creed at the voting booth curtain. If you expect them to vote for government solutions when the question of worldly poverty arises, then you must expect them to vote their religious duty towards ending abortion. We simply aren't talking about wholly religious issues on things such poverty and life. We're talking about basic moral questions the answers to which define ourselves as a society.

Yes, and define ourselves as Christians. If we are expected to be whole Christians then we must live up to that. And society must allow it if it is to be just, civil, and moral.

What those do when they demand we not vote our creed in practical application is nothing short of effrontery. It is insulting and immoral in itself. The left doesn't get that. That's why it's so critical that, on November 6th, we vote our creed.

Rats leaving a sinking ship

Are we witnessing an Romney Tsunami? Several prominent newspapers have come in with endorsements of the Massachusetts Republican, newspapers which supported President Barack Obama in 2008. The Orlando Sentinel, the Tennessean, The New York Observer; they all endorsed Barack Obama in the last election, yet are siding with Mitt Romney this time around. There are others as well.

Is this genuine, or are they merely following the pack? With Romney surging ahead in many of the polls, you have to wonder. Still, when the papers who supported Barack Obama not that long ago are now abandoning him, it is a telling sign of his accomplishments. Or lack thereof.

When the Orlando Sentinel chides the President for a lack of bipartisan efforts on the budget, it plays right into the hands of the GOP. What has Paul Ryan said so often? The House has passed several budgets in recent years while the White House and the Democratic controlled Senate have not. And the budget is not the only issue where the White House has failed to be truly bipartisan, says the newspaper.

Isn't it the Democrats who preach 'reaching across the aisle'? Isn't it the Democrats who are supposed to be inclusive and tolerant? We see that they are not. And that is what this election is about: exposing the fraud of the left. They talk the talk. They do not walk the walk. When even those of the same stripe begin to admit as much, then whom to vote for in November becomes an easy choice.

Romney 2, Obama 0.

Who won the debate last night? That question seemed to be on the mind of every per...political wonk out there. Now it's in the hands of the spin doctors in both parties.

But who won? Really?

Likely as not, Mitt Romney. While President Barack Obama was much more on the offensive yesterday evening, Governor Romney was no less on that attack than in their first go 'round. So as to actually won, the jury is out as it was very close. But when thinking about who won from the standpoint of practicality, Romney did.

He scored so well in the first debate that the President needed to come out not merely swinging, but swinging for the fences. Arguably he was trying to do that, yet without the best results. It was like, as at the very best for the outcome was indeed close enough to be considered a draw, his team scored a run the inning after the opposition hit a grand slam. It was an improvement. It was hardly a triumph.

As such, it means Mitt Romney won. Yes, yes, we'll hear for about another day the fact checkers going nuts. But so far as that goes, each candidate apparently struggled enough in trying to pin the other down that no one of us in the voting public can ever actually know to the greatest detail who was the most right. They could be throwing any numbers at all out there and who would really know the difference? Even with the fact checkers, well, who checks them? Simply because CNN can find people to say A while Fox News has folks who say B means little in itself. The general populace doesn't know nor have the time or interest to look into most debate points themselves.

Romney won because Obama could not set himself apart from his opponent in any substantive way. With the foreign policy debate set for next week and the Benghazi maelstrom looming so low above the President's head, the best expectation is that the GOP challenger will be in the best position heading into November.