Cockroaches have more respect than some leaders

When convictions clash with culture, the changes taking place in the way people think becomes clear. I cannot remember a time when there has been more evidence of the change in the direction of our nation or the major change in the way people think as they go through their life. Often, I have bemoaned the reality of the loss of respect we have seen over the years. It is hard to pinpoint the exact date in time when our nation started down the road in losing respect for those who were in authority.

 Recent surveys indicate that cockroaches are more likeable and can be tolerated better than elected members of Congress. It is a sad day when people in positions of leadership have so disappointed the people they are supposed to be leading that their approval rating goes down and shows no signs of going back up. With the age of tolerance and diversity ruling the day, it is becoming evermore obvious when a person is driven by convictions or traditional views of what is right and what is wrong they will be held up as examples of bigotry. There have been times when I have compared the harsh nature of the rhetoric taking place between people with differing opinions as if it is a “wrestle mania” match. In sports, we have come to expect that the enemy is the other side and we must mash their faces in the dirt and leave them bloody on the field of battle. People are not satisfied just to win a sporting event; they want to see the other side crippled for life. That same attitude is showing up in every area of our culture. In the business world we hear the phrase, “Dog eat dog.” We have heard that when a person goes into the world to try and make a living for their families they find it is like jungle warfare out there. There is a worldview that quickly responds with invectives and insults toward any person who happens to express a different viewpoint. We have moved into a time when we are seeing the truth in the statement; “Only the strong survive.” Any sign of weakness is exploited to the point of rendering the other side useless and of no human value. We soon discover the people who cry the loudest for diversity and tolerance show no indication they are willing to exhibit either tolerance or diversity when they come up against someone who disagrees with their worldview.

What a person believes can be kept personal for a short time but when the belief systems begin to clash, the complete disagreement of how to manage conflict or differing views soon boils to the surface. There are various worldviews driving people today. We have those who believe in no rules or laws, except those they want to impose on others. There are people who advocate for relaxing of the moral code that has been in place in our country for generations. There are people who will take from others without fear of being caught. Once they are caught, however, they quickly seek to blame someone or something else for their behavior. There was a day in our history when rules of behavior were generally accepted but that day is gone. There was a time when mature adults could disagree without being disagreeable but that day is also gone. Human life has been devalued to the place where there is no value left.

Jokingly, my daddy would tell me many times, “Son, remember there are two sides to every issue, your side and then a bunch of ignorant prejudiced idiots.” I am afraid that what my father said in jest has now become the new normal in public exchange of ideas and morals in our culture. There are people who argue that there are no absolutes in moral issues and they are absolutely sure there are no absolutes. We seem to be at a place where everybody does what they believe is right in their own eyes rather than following a moral code generally believed to be the way we should all live our lives. One cannot help but wonder how much further down this slippery slope of clashing worldviews we will fall before we hit bottom.  There must be a return to personal and individual respect in the public square.

Life is precious; all should have a chance at life

Life begins at conception and is to continue until the Giver of Life determines its natural end. This never moving conviction is part of my list of beliefs I always express about the origin of life. 40 years ago this month, the United States Supreme Court ruled they had found what had not been seen in the United States Constitution previously. They found a guaranteed right of choice to take a life in the womb. Though the Declaration of Independence assures life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as part of the founding pillar of our nation, these justices determined they knew best and refused to allow for the pursuit of happiness for the most innocent of human life, a child in the womb. Since they ruled in favor of abortion, more than fifty-four and a half million people have been aborted at the choice of someone else. It seems very strange to me that we have been told by those advocating for the death choice that life does not begin at conception. In fact, depending on which advocate for death one reads, life is an ever moving goal post. Some advocates for death want us to think it could be as late as one month after a child is born. Other advocates for choice want us to think it could be that the child (a vital and vibrant human being) does not really possess life until they can know and be aware of their surroundings outside the womb.

I find it interesting that with the announcement of a celebrity being pregnant there is not a picture of a “Fetus bump,” but the picture always has a tag line to say a “baby bump.” I have yet to see someone go around showing pictures of their ultra sound calling the baby in the womb a blob of tissues. Yet, when the choice advocates refer to an aborted human being as a fetus or just a blob of tissue we are supposed to concede the point to them. The future King of England and his wife are expecting a baby, nowhere have I read they are having a fetus or blob of tissue. Each reference I have read about the heir to the throne of England’s child, says a “baby.”

Over these forty years since Roe v Wade, those who advocate for choice always set a predetermined point that they have the right to choose if the life in them lives or dies. Those of us who advocate for life are painted as extremists and even a danger to society because we argue on the side of life. In the way this issue has been presented to the public, we are told that the life issue is political. Not so, the issue of life is a moral one. Over many years, I have been asked to help counsel women following abortions when the reality sets in on what they chose to do. I have not sought them out; they have come to me seeking guidance as to how they can deal with the trauma following their decision and resulting death of their baby.

I am pleased to be able to stand with Georgia Right to Life as they advocate for life. We are still in the process of finding it necessary to explain to this current generation of child bearing women that carrying a child to full term and giving birth is the correct choice to make when dealing with the issue of being pregnant.

My heart goes out to the women who learn they cannot conceive or bring children into the world. With the number of children who for many reasons are in this life without parents, adoption is a wonderful path to take in becoming parents. I remember being on a fact finding mission in the former Soviet Union and visiting many orphanages where children were longing and looking for affection and care. In recent years, many have rejoiced in being able to adopt a child from Russia. That option has now, at least temporarily, been closed. There are many more children across our nation and in other countries that are available to adopt. As a person finds they are faced with the choice of abortion or carrying the baby to full term know, there are agencies that will assist in being sure the baby has a chance at life. I look forward to the day when Roe v Wade will be overturned.

We must learn lessons from history or fail

As a student of history, the rise and fall of governments intrigues me. We are moving toward a historic date that calls for closer examination. The date to which I refer is not the Presidential Election, November 6, but the date is December 25, 1991. That date stands in history as the time when the last leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, admitted he could no longer be the leader of the Communist nation of Russia.  It would be In January of 1992 that the nation would collapse. In these twenty-one years since the fall of that totalitarian centralized government, historians have sought answers as to why such a thing happened. There is not enough space in this column to address every issue that brought down the once thought-to-be mighty empire, but I will suggest one major issue we should always remember. The issue to which I refer is the need for public debate on how we are to be governed. I am a believer in a two party system of government with input from the largest number of citizens as is possible. This year, we are facing in our nation a public debate on how we are to be governed. We have before us a clear example of a choice to be made. The issue at hand is our determination to remain a free capitalist people. We are facing a major decision about how our government will be structured. Do we want a strong centralized government structure headquartered in Washington D.C or do we want to have a government of the people, by the people and for the people?

The most interesting assessment of the collapse of the Communist system in Russia was actually penned before the fall of the government. In January 1990, Joe Slovo, the head of the Communist Party in South Africa, wrote a major essay titled; “Has Socialism Failed?” The summary of what Slovo said was that Socialism/Communism did not and would not fail  He admitted that the ideology of Socialism had fallen on hard times and was facing a crisis in the decade of the 90’s due to allowing of the encroachment of capitalist principles in government.

To me, the most interesting aspect of the examination of the collapse of the Communist regime in Russia is that it took place twenty-one years ago and many of the young college graduates in the Western world today were never exposed to the evil of the totalitarian control by a centralized government. The young leftists of today do not know of the horrors of the old Soviet state. The liberal media has become unhinged following the Republican National Convention where Mitt Romney was nominated to carry the banner for the party into the Presidential Election in November. The horror that is evidenced by the radical leftists media types is seen in that they have bought into the false idea that government knows best and that government must be controlled in a centralized manner with only a few at the top making decisions for all people. That is the only fair way they can see for government to function. They could not be more wrong.

In April of 1992 following the fall of the government in the old Soviet Union, I was there. I had the chance to engage many different people in conversation about what had happened to their government structure. The most interesting fact that came to light was the reality that following the takeover by the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the first thing that happened was the total loss of freedom of speech, the press, religion, and free expression of ideas. The media trumpeting the positives of total government control lost their freedoms first. The very people who want to defend against a populist movement of freedom of speech will be the first to loose their freedom to speak as they deem necessary in a takeover by a socialist’s regime.

History records for us that it was the reforms restoring freedom of speech and the move toward capitalism that is now pointed to as the biggest mistakes Mikhail Gorbachev made as he tried to save the empire, which then led to the collapse of the police state of Communism.  As we move toward the anniversary of the fall of the Soviet Union and the Presidential Election, we must learn the lessons from their history or we will be where they once were.

We must change the direction of our nation

 Last weekend, as I took a trip down memory lane, I was reminded time and tide waits for no one. The memories seemed more like an Interstate highway rather than an old country lane. The occasion bringing the flood of memories was the 50^th year since my high school graduation.  The year I graduated from high school was 1962. Looking back as I did with old friends, those seemed like simple days. Compared to the fast paced world of today, they were simple. It seemed we all knew everybody in our town, especially in our little neighborhood. We all knew each other; parents, grandparents, school teachers, preachers, and politicians were all known by name and the church where they held membership. One of my classmates reminded us when all the stores closed on Wednesday at lunchtime allowing the employees and customers to go to church for midweek prayer meeting. We could spend much time walking back into those days, known as the “good old days.” But those days are gone forever. As much as some would like to turn the clock back to regain those days, that is not possible. We must always be moving forward

As we move forward, we have an election taking place in several counties with run-off voting next Tuesday August 21, please vote.

Once this round of elections is finalized we move forward to November 6, and the General Election. While there are many interesting local and statewide races across the country, none will occupy more attention than the Presidential Election.  Our country will make a choice as to the direction we want to see our country going in the future. Being an observer and having strong opinions about the direction I would like to see our country take, I offer the following list of suggestions.

To change the trajectory of our nation we must find a way to cut spending. We cannot continue to spend with wild abandonment as if there is no time coming when we must pay the bills. We must seal our borders. We cannot continue to allow our borders to be open with anyone coming into our country without following the established process of entry. To allow the borders to remain open will not be a dream, but will continue to be the nightmare that it has become. In the cutting of spending that must take place, we must come to understand that entitlements are a bottomless pit and that we cannot pay for every want or wish that all the people in our country desire and have now come to demand. We must have leadership who will deal with the hard issues, rather than telling us what they think we want to hear. We have all heard of the American dream. (We talked about that in my class reunion.) The American dream has been hijacked and turned into an out of control train wreck that is headed over a cliff. We must have leadership willing to establish law and order by enforcing laws that are currently in the code books and doing away with the useless laws that suppress freedoms. We must establish a means by which businesses will be unshackled from over regulation. We must establish the means allowing for the drilling of the natural resources we have underneath us in our country’s soil and offshore in our waterways. We must find a way to have less government control and allow for more personal responsibility to assure success. Government must get out of the way and allow us to reclaim the American dream. Dignity of life must be restored.  The value of human life needs to be put into its proper place allowing for protection of human life from conception until natural death. We need to understand that government cannot redefine marriage because it never defined marriage in the beginning. Our first ten amendments to our constitution need to be reaffirmed and never tampered with again. We need to have courage enough to get out of the most useless international organization on earth, the United Nations.  The way forward in our nation will be challenging, but we must change directions in order to remain a free nation.

The new normal devalues life

With our heads still reeling from the awful events that took place in a crowded theater in Colorado last week, trying to find answers to how we have gotten to this place in our culture is not easy. Last week’s column dealt with the heinous crimes committed against the innocent minor children who were sexually abused by the now convicted coach at Penn State. There is a link between the two crimes. At the root of the issues we are facing in our culture is the value we place on human life. The aberrant behavior of some in our society causes us to look at what is now considered to be the new norm. One could argue we have always had people killing other people, since Cain killed Abel. It could also be posited that as long as there have been people, there has been sexual misbehavior. Even though we can find antidotal evidence to support various positions on the norms and mores of culture, we also know that certain behaviors have been seen as normal and certain behaviors have been admitted to be abnormal in every civilization.

In modern time, we can trace a change in the direction of our morals to the Woodstock era and the so-called sexual revolution occurring in the 50’s and 60’s and continues to this present day. The loose adhering to the moral codes of former generations has led us to the day when a book attempting to mainstream (deviant) sexual practices involving bondage, discipline, sadism, and masochism (BDSM) has set a new record for the fastest selling paperback book of all time. In keeping with the reality that once a person dabbles in the darker side of personality and society there is always the pushing of the envelope to try more heinous ways of being satisfied. We see this being played out in the erotic novels by British author E.L. James in a planned trilogy. At first, one begins with Fifty Shades of Grey, then secondly, Fifty Shades Darker to the final Fifty Shades Freed. Many libraries across the country have refused to allow the book on their shelves. Uproar always follows the decision by library boards, as some people claim their freedom of speech is being harmed by not being able to read the titillating verbiage in the book.

In the 1970’s, Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon revealed the results of studies on the relation between pornography and crime where they recommended fewer restrictions on porn. President Ronald Reagan issued an order for a comprehensive investigation into pornography bringing about the Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography when the 75th Attorney General, Edwin Meese III followed through with the publishing of the findings of the commission in 1986. At that time the pornography peddlers cried that their freedoms of speech rights were being trampled. A person only needs to read the first hand testimony of the victims of child rape, prostitution, and other crimes against innocent boys and girls to realize the depth of the depravity of those who are victims of a culture that looks the other way when the issue of pornography is brought to light.

Moving forward in time, we have continued down that slippery slope into the quagmire of perversion to the place where the new norm is to the point of allowing any type of perversion as long as it is acted out in the entertainment or publishing segments of society. At the root of pornography is the act of fornication (Greek word porneia), and fornication is the devaluing of human life. We are now at the stage where people are arguing for after-birth-abortion up to three days following the birth of a child. As we have continued to mainstream filth and see others as objects for personal deviant pleasure, we are seeing the full cycle of this behavior. The killing of innocent human beings by a murdering thug, the degrading of a human being by violating and robbing them of their innocence, and the taking of a human life simply because having a baby does not fit into the career plans of a couple can all be seen as the ultimate devaluing of the worth of a person.

 Human life is precious. Human life has worth, value, and dignity, and should be treated with the utmost respect from conception to natural death. We must once again mainstream morality, respect for others, and life as the new normal.

How many more sports scandals are out there?

The day after the information began to be reported in the media about the full investigation into the horrific heinous abuse of the minor children at the hands of the perverted-deviant-convicted-felon-coach from Penn State, a friend sent the headlines from various newspapers in Pennsylvania to me. They told the story of what had happened as college leadership did everything possible to keep an alleged major crime out of the media. The long years of the cover up are now being made known to the public. The desire was to keep as much information as possible from the public eye. The motive was to protect the football program and the reputation of the coach with the longest stretch of wins in football history. This is so wrong on so many levels it is almost as if I am writing about a never ending nightmare. Have you ever tried to make sense after waking up from a nightmare and the small details will not come back to your mind? The nightmare scenes stay with you all day, and you try to figure out why you would have dreamed as you did. How far down this slippery slope of moral depravity has this nation gone when the concern is to protect the reputation of a coach, rather than concern for the innocent victims of what has to be the most awful violation that could ever be forced upon any one? With calls from many parts of the country to remove the statue of the successful football coach, the trustees of Penn State have concluded, according to media reports that the statue will stay up. They have said the decision allowing the statue to remain or be removed will be made once the emotion and passion of the moment passes. Oh really? Passion and emotion of the moment wins out over the harm that can never be reversed to the victims of sexual abuse, in the minds of the adult trustees of Penn State. How can this happen? How is it that our nation is so in love with football, or any other sport, that the reputation of the coach is more important than anything else? Awards, trophies, buildings named in honor, money granted to young players with a dream of playing for a legend, and winning games trumps the lifetime of horror that will linger in the memory of untold numbers of victims of sexual abuse. Once the first person saw or even thought he was witnessing sexual abuse, the alarm should have been sounded. At the first sign that one of the coaches in the football legend’s squad was suspected of over-attention to young children, immediate action should have been taken to assure that the coach would not be in any way in touch with minors. But the football program was the thing to be protected no matter what it took to do so. Are we to believe that protection of a sports program and fear that money would not be sent from the alumni (to keep the sports program at the highest level) caused the people making the decision to make insane decisions? It is possible that the decision was already made that no matter what crime was committed all must be done to protect the program and the winning coach from public harm. Are our children safe anywhere? As sports camps are being conducted across the country at large and small colleges this summer are there other deviants lurking near the showers to catch a glimpse of the young innocent children? Will we now look at every sports program with a careful eye to be sure that what happened at Penn State would never be repeated? Will the college presidents and coaches assure the parents of the young and innocent would-be future college sports stars that the only interest they have in them is to develop their athletic ability? Will the full disclosure of what happened at Penn State when the priorities got turned on their head be enough to demand that all colleges put forward assurances and programs protecting the innocent lives of the student athletes? Are there stories from other colleges and coaches that have not yet been exposed? We have more questions than answers at this time. Some people reading this column might suggest this is an overreaction, I do not think so. The time is now that we must rethink the entire craze in our nation with sports.

Not a path to freedom

On this celebration of our nation’s Declaration of Independent from the oppression of the King of England, we have reached another major watershed mark. Will our nation continue to enjoy a free market economy? Will we continue to enjoy the free market system that has allowed our nation to be the number one most sought after nation on earth? Will the blood, shed by military and civilian citizens to purchase our freedoms, be looked on in our future as a waste of time and life? What is the future for our nation? The path we are currently on is not a path to freedom but to enslavement. We are being led into a place where the government is larger and government control is paramount to everything else. Personal freedoms are fast being thrown away. Many people have tried to find a silver lining in the 5 to 4 ruling of the Supreme Court last week. I am of the opinion there are few, if any, positives to be found in their affirmation allowing big government to take over even the smallest decisions we have been making. Personal decisions and personal responsibility have been thrown away by that 5 to 4 ruling. Using trick words and government-political-vocabulary, we have been sold out by some who were reported to have been conservative in their thinking. By the leftists’ vocabulary use of the word penalty not being a tax is nothing more than shameful as if we have no more awareness than to know we have been tricked. One of the tricks of the left is to redefine words and have enough people say the words until finally the citizens give in to admit that a penalty is not a tax. Saying a government imposed penalty that is required to be paid to the IRS is not a tax is like the current bait-and-switch wording of those who are pushing so hard to expand gambling in our state and exchange the word gambling to the word gaming. The predatory practices of the big government crowd never change. Their intent is to control, through government, all that we do in life. We will no longer have personal accountability or personal responsibility because that big government bunch is sure they know better how to run our life than we do. At this point in our history, we have only a small window of opportunity left to us to change the trajectory of our country. The only resource we have, at this time, is to be registered to vote, and to vote in every election. We must never choose not to vote in any election and let the government control crowd continue to win at the ballot box. No matter how sincere or how super educated the left want to paint their intention, there is no doubt they are determined to take over this country throwing our hard fought freedoms in the trash bin of history. Each year at this time I read the United States Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Communist Manifesto. Last weekend, I took time to read those three documents again. Each year upon reading the documents of our history and the document outlining the desire by communists to enslave all people everywhere, yet promising freedom, I have a greater fear we are closer to loosing all of our freedoms than ever. In this week when we celebrate our freedoms with family and friends, let us all engage others in the conversation where we will express our beliefs in that which has made and kept our country great. Let us determine to make sure those men and women who receive our vote in the next election will always vote our values that will continue to assure we will remain a free nation. Unless we rally the citizens of our country to stand up, speak up, and refuse to be silent until we turn back this nation to less government and more personal responsibility, we will continue on the path where we are headed and when we arrive we will discover it is not a path to freedom, but enslavement to the government. With too many of our citizens now depending on the government for support and their livelihood, it is possible we will continue down this road to enslavement. We must no longer remain silent, but be wiling to stand and be counted as those who stand for freedom from government tyranny.