Obama's Hypocrisy on Abortion

Well. When living children who reach the age of six or so are shot to death, they are mourned. As well they should be, of course. As well they should be. Yet should their mothers had elected to terminate their young lives in the womb, or, perhaps, a scant few seconds after they had left the womb, well, that is Momma's choice. Or Barack Obama's, as the case may be, given the legislation he and they supported.

How many children died during the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School last month? How many would have died before their births six years or thereabouts prior should their mothers or Barack Obama had chosen their deaths?

Pretty much about the same numbers.

Yet Adam Lanza is a cad, and Barack Obama a hero as he pronounces new gun control legislation. The pot calling the kettle, dare we ask?

Dare we ask. Dare we ask.

The Gun Control Debacle

Suffer the little children to come unto me. That could be the mantra of Christ Jesus admonishing his followers to allow children to approach Him freely. Yet it could also and easily be the mantra of President Barack Obama, who summoned children as a backdrop to the announcement of his gun control plans.

What is the difference? One is not using children but, rather, wanting them to approach him for their own good. The other is a political hack employing children as an emotional backdrop to his own selfish pandering towards an electorate, which, he says, wants answers.

Well, what answers are there? There is nothing in the President's ideas which would have prevented the Sandy Hook massacre or Aurora, Colorado theater attack. Nothing. The plain fact is that the only type of gun control which may, and we stress very much the word may, actually affect violent acts would be to ban guns entirely. That, of course, can only be brought about by totalitarianism. Even then, would there not be a black market, and underground movement of guns and attack paraphernalia? In short, those intending to do great harm to their fellows will still be quite readily able to do so.

By what sense can it be usefully argued that adding hardships to innocent citizens will make any given thing better? To be sure, there are times when we must try: laws against murder must be on the books despite the knowledge that murders will still be committed, as a symbol of what we stand for as a nation truly interested in the well being of the person. What will all these Executive Orders and what not really do? Nothing except to impose additional and unwarranted difficulties on the law abiding.

The situation isn't much different from what Americans face daily as the result of the border hassles brought on by 9/11. In the name of fighting terrorism we have made it harder for law abiding citizens to do something as simple and straightforward as visiting Canada. There is no particular reason to believe that making things tough on legal gun owners (or even potential legal gunholders) will keep savagery at bay in the future.

But the government has to do something, right? Barack Obama can't just sit there while all sorts of bogeymen lay in wait for the children, can he? This is political grandstanding at its very worst, for the worst of all possible reasons: one man's legacy.

The President is using children as deflector shields in his continuing assault on the Constitution. Such acts are not admirable. 

Legal Doesn't Always mean Moral

Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal. Never forget that everything the Founding Fathers did was not.

-Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Much hay is made over the idea that legality equals morality. Yet one moment's reflection by any person of serious thought can demonstrate that such is not necessarily the case.

We must be very careful with any premise which asserts that simply because the leaders of any given nation at any given time or in any given place say something is okay that it is in fact okay. The supporters of atrocities such as abortion regularly and flippantly assert that as it is legal it is moral. Well, as the old saw goes, slavery was once legal. Does that mean slavery, when legal, is moral?

Of course not. Only a fool would build a system of right and wrong on such an axiom. It would result in nothing short of an ethical house of cards, subject to the violence of the summer breeze and the whims of the short sighted and thoughtless soul.

Still, we have essentially done just that in the United States today. The issues involved are not even so heinous as abortion or national health care, either: it is patently immoral to take one man's money to give to another man so that that man can buy a car. Period.

The problem is that when we stray in one area it is too easy to stray in another. To avoid this, we must begin doing what is right because it is right and avoiding wrong because it is wrong. Until we can make that distinction and act properly, we are on the high road to political and social extinction.

The first step in recognizing that is accepting that the best laws are in fact also moral. The first step away is thinking that the legal changes the moral. That is nothing less than Orwellian, and marks nothing less than our doom.

The Audacity of the President

“Implicit . . . in the very idea of ordered liberty... is a rejection of absolute truth, the infallibility of any idea or ideology or theology or ‘ism,’ any tyrannical consistency that might lock future generations into a single unalterable course . . ."

-The Audacity of Hope, by President Barack Obama

Well, there you have it, and about as concisely as can be had. Barack Obama doesn't believe in anything. It's no wonder that he believes that he can do as he pleases without regard to that pesky Constitution. All that document did was to lock future generations into a certain course. Never mind that the ride, on the whole, has been rather fruitful. The Constitution represents an 'ism'.

Guess what, Mr. President? You have an ism yourself. Everyone has an ism. Yours is relativism, and it is by far the worst ism out there.

How can you, Mr. Obama, assert the truth of the need for national health care if you don't see at least a bit of an absolute there? Doesn't everyone, of all times, at some point or another, need health care? Surely you would not have pushed for it if you did not see the benefit for all times and all places? Conservatives don't agree with you, of course. But we would have a greater respect for you if you were to argue that national health care, done well, will be a benefit for this and all following generations. As it is, all we can conclude is that you forced it through for selfish and self serving purposes: to win elections and create a legacy.

Then we have the obvious retort to your written philosophy: how can you be sure that your ideology, and it must be stressed that it is an ideology, be true if nothing is true for all times and all ages? Do you, can you, can any rational and intelligent being, really believe that? It seems that if they did, they would be little more than narcissists, or worse. Why bother about other people if nothing is true for all times and all ages?

Are we to presume, Mr. President, that, as nothing is true for all times and places, that there are, will be, or have been, periods where rape and child molestation are or were moral? Yes, we are quite sure you would say no to that. Yet as soon as you do, you have violated your own creed. By what legal or philosophical justification must rape and child molestation be wrong, anywhere and everywhere, unless we want to to bind the hands of future generations on the grounds that these things are and always will be wrong?

Ye speaketh with forked tongue, Mr. President. If nothing is right or wrong for all ages, then nothing is right or wrong today. But that suits your purposes just fine, doesn't it? You like the tyrannical consistency of relativism. That's how you can support abortion but cry for the children of Newtown, Connecticut. It's all relative.

CYO Football and GIrls

Leave it to the Catholic Church to cause controversy over an issue which most of society would see as unimportant, or as having been decided long ago. We say that as a compliment, however. The general society needs a better conscience that it actually has, and the Church offers that to those who listen objectively. You can read a basic (and biased against the Church) synopsis here: http://www.makers.com/blog/caroline-pla-rallies-girls-right-play-football?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl16%7Csec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D600481

Caroline Pla has been told that she can no longer play CYO (Catholic Youth Organization) football in a league sponsored by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. The Archdiocese has determined that girls should not play contact sports with boys, at least in football. The usual clamor has been raised in an attempt to make the powers that be in the Church in Philadelphia change their mind.

She's a great player, she's great teammate, and she's a role model for young girls are among the platitudes said on her behalf. The trouble is that none of those things matter. When you get down to brass tacks, not even any given boy has a right play in any given sports league, particularly one which is private. If boys don't have an inherent right to play, why should girls?

Then there is the religious aspect. This is another case of the religious right to conscience being ignored by much of society. No individual, and we mean absolutely no individual, has the right to violate the rights of the religious. Of course, that point shall be dismissed. Liberals believe they have the moral authority to force anything on anyone. That includes the religious conscience. The left is only for rights they believe exist.

We hope that the Archdiocese sticks to its guns and will not relent. But whether it does or does not, it is good that it has called attention to such matters. The question of whether should play contact sports with boys isn't really being considered properly. Neither is the issue of religious rights. What is it that so many people, particularly on the left, say? Open your mind when seeking answers. That doesn't seem, however, to apply to their thoughts.

The NHL Returns; So What?

The National Hockey League is back. Or, rather it will be, sometime around January 15th. Are we supposed to be impressed by this?

We shouldn't. Millionaires arguing with other millionaires over how a multi-billion dollar pie should be split. Isn't it a bit absurd that such a thing should matter to the fans who foot that bill?

This is not to single out hockey. It is a situation which every major sport faces from time to time, and equally absurd in the other prime sporting arenas. The fact is that sports and games have become too important to us, and the sports people know this. They know they can play the fans because they know the fans will come back. They would rather see NHL players stalking each other on the ice while they cheer in their blood lust.

It would be nice to talk about integrity here, but there really isn't any. Last minute deals such as the new labor agreement (doesn't it seem somehow an insult to real laborers that such sporting agreements are seen as involving labor?) in the NHL reek of self serving needs. They have to get a season in somehow and someway or they might lose their money. That isn't integrity. That's selfishness. There would be greater integrity in continuing the strike. The parties involved could then at least pretend that it was all about principle.

To be sure, a return to play will help the local businesses which rely on big sports to keep themselves afloat. That is perhaps the biggest reason for happiness over the NHL's return. That is perhaps the biggest reason for having huge and pricey sports leagues and teams, that they help the general economy. Yet none of that really matters to the sports magnates and their stables of players. If it did, there would not have been a strike to begin with.

Ah well. Let the games begin. Maybe a few fans will actively protest and not support the product, but that ain't likely. Bone jarring checks mean more than principle, more than the personal embarrassment of admitting that you've been gamed. The sports leaders know you better than you know yourself. The National Hockey League's return to play will demonstrate that.

The Truth about the Minimum Wage

A recent study based on the Basic Economic Security Tables for Michigan has concluded that people can't live on minimum wage.

Shocked? You shouldn't be. Yet what is so often forgotten is that no one generally has to live on it. The overwhelming majority of minimum wage earners are exactly those who don't need to live off of it. They are teenagers and others on the first step of the employment ladder, or the second wage earner in a traditional household. In short, they are, generally speaking, those just getting their feet wet economically. They're getting job experience; what ought they expect when just starting out?

But that is not the real intent behind the study. One of the people it focused on was a 23 year old unmarried mother of two, trying to support herself and her kids working two jobs which paid between $9.50 and $13 bucks an hour. Another is a single mother of three who makes $7.54 an hour as a telemarketer. Single mothers... is anyone willing to stand up and point out that these are not traditional families?

How did they become single mothers? It doesn't matter, because we will be told that that's none of our business as a society. Yet when these single moms want sympathy, and a liberal organizations such as Wider Opportunities for Women and the Michigan League for Human Services, who created the report using public data, want attention to their views on how the government ought to run the economy, then their lot in life is supposed to be our concern.

To call that effrontery is to understate the point. Yet simple common sense says that if these single moms had waited to have kids until they were in a more stable and traditional home environment, or at least until they had gained the skills themselves to qualify for better jobs, then their current wages wouldn't be such an issue.

This is not to disparage all single moms. Some are in that position through no fault of their own, to be sure. But as to the ones who are in such circumstances as the direct result of free will actions of their own, it is fair to wonder exactly how much society ought to change for their benefit. Simple Christian charity indeed calls on us to help...but more for the sake of the children involved. They are the innocents. Their mothers are all too often merely insisting that they be allowed to act any way they want, then demanding society help hold the bag.

It is a point which should not be lost on the larger society when considering wealth and poverty issues.