Daniel Hannan wrote an editorial in the Wall Street Journal on March 12; it appeared on page A15. Mr. Hannan has been a member of the European Parliament for 11 years; he is a Briton. He wrote to warn the United States to avoid the mistakes that the European Union has been making for the past few decades.
Mr. Hannan notes that the United States has been following the European example for several years, i.e., we have embodied in our society and our government higher taxes, less patriotism, a bigger role for state bureaucracy, and a transfer of sovereignty to global institutions. Many Americans seem to genuinely believe that it would be a good idea to make our country less American and more like the rest of the world—namely, more like Europe. These changes are seen as the way to a more comfortable and peaceable way of life.
In America, we have traditionally designed our government to limit the power of the state by recall mechanisms, ballot initiatives, balanced budget rules, open primaries, localism, states’ rights, term limits, the direct election of public officials from the sheriff to the school board. The EU places supreme power in the hands of 27 unelected Commissioners invulnerable to public opinion.
Mr. Hannan notes that as the U.S. applies a European-style economic strategy based on fiscal stimulus, nationalization of businesses, bailouts, and the regulation of private-sector remuneration, unemployment in the U.S. has leaped to European levels.
Legislation in the U.S. is increasingly implemented through executive orders, bypassing the Congress and Senate. In short, we are losing our freedoms to big government.
Many people don’t even see America as a good place to live—can we blame immigrants who come to our shores for refusing to acculturate into American society?
Let’s get back at it, America! Let’s stop this trend toward big government and the “blame America first” attitude. We have a great country! It is worth sustaining and supporting.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
How To Live Longer
A new book called The Longevity Project by Friedman and Martin seeks to identify childhood traits that lead to long life. The best childhood predictor of longevity, it turns out, is a quality best defined as conscientiousness: “the often complex pattern of persistence, prudence, hard work, and close involvement with friends and communities that produces a well-organized person who is somewhat obsessive and not at all carefree.
High intelligence and advanced educational degrees did not correlate with long life. Rather, the ability to navigate life’s challenges was a better predictor of longevity.
Cheerful children turned out to be shorter-lived than their more sober classmates. These children died more often because they had a tendency to throw caution to the wind when it came to life-shortening habits like smoking, drinking, and driving fast cars. The chipper types were also more likely to die from homicide, suicide, or accident.
The early death of a parent had no measurable effect on children’s life spans or mortality risk, but the long-term health effects of broken families were often devastating. The grown children of divorced parents died almost 5 years earlier than children from intact families.
Long-livers had a higher level of physical activity and a habit of giving back to the community, a thriving and long-running career, and a healthy marriage and family life.
Those with a dark disposition, i.e., those who viewed every stumble as a calamity were the most likely to die sooner.
(The above was excerpted from the Wall Street Journal 3-9-11 page A15.)
In looking at this book, I am reminded of the admonition in the book of Ecclesiastes 7:2,3 “It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting. for death is the destiny of every man; the living should take this to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter because a sad face is good for the heart.”
High intelligence and advanced educational degrees did not correlate with long life. Rather, the ability to navigate life’s challenges was a better predictor of longevity.
Cheerful children turned out to be shorter-lived than their more sober classmates. These children died more often because they had a tendency to throw caution to the wind when it came to life-shortening habits like smoking, drinking, and driving fast cars. The chipper types were also more likely to die from homicide, suicide, or accident.
The early death of a parent had no measurable effect on children’s life spans or mortality risk, but the long-term health effects of broken families were often devastating. The grown children of divorced parents died almost 5 years earlier than children from intact families.
Long-livers had a higher level of physical activity and a habit of giving back to the community, a thriving and long-running career, and a healthy marriage and family life.
Those with a dark disposition, i.e., those who viewed every stumble as a calamity were the most likely to die sooner.
(The above was excerpted from the Wall Street Journal 3-9-11 page A15.)
In looking at this book, I am reminded of the admonition in the book of Ecclesiastes 7:2,3 “It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting. for death is the destiny of every man; the living should take this to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter because a sad face is good for the heart.”
Sunday, March 6, 2011
The Illegal Immigration Argument Marches On!
The United States still tussles with illegal immigration; and it seems that the states are making some progress despite the languor of the Federal government.
Utah is probably going to pass a bill that will allow illegal immigrants to stay in the state and work legally if they pass a criminal check, pay a fine of $2500, and apply for a permit from the state’s Department of Workforce Services. This program is very reminiscent of the Bracero Program that allowed alien Mexicans to come into the U.S. legally for limited periods between 1942 and 1964. Those Mexicans were imported temporarily to work in agricultural venues, for the most part. The Bracero Program decreased illegal immigration by 95% between 1952 and 1959.
My wife and I work with illegal immigrants twice weekly in a food bank; and there is one problem we see with this Utah solution: We do not know a single undocumented Mexican who can raise $2500 to pay the fine required. But…this idea of Utah’s is a start back to sanity on the part of the U.S. concerning illegal immigration.
The other disincentive for illegal immigration that is cooking through U.S. legislative channels is a move to eliminate the automatic awarding of citizenship to babies born to illegal immigrants in the U.S. About 340,000 babies are born to illegal Hispanics in the U.S. each year; and these “anchor babies” serve as justification for keeping their parents in the U.S. permanently, despite that fact that the parents are illegals.
If you wish to contribute to the passage of this kind of legislation, I would appeal to you to write to your Congressional representative and ask him/her to vote for and support the passage of the Birthright Citizenship Act of 2011 (H.R. 140).
Utah is probably going to pass a bill that will allow illegal immigrants to stay in the state and work legally if they pass a criminal check, pay a fine of $2500, and apply for a permit from the state’s Department of Workforce Services. This program is very reminiscent of the Bracero Program that allowed alien Mexicans to come into the U.S. legally for limited periods between 1942 and 1964. Those Mexicans were imported temporarily to work in agricultural venues, for the most part. The Bracero Program decreased illegal immigration by 95% between 1952 and 1959.
My wife and I work with illegal immigrants twice weekly in a food bank; and there is one problem we see with this Utah solution: We do not know a single undocumented Mexican who can raise $2500 to pay the fine required. But…this idea of Utah’s is a start back to sanity on the part of the U.S. concerning illegal immigration.
The other disincentive for illegal immigration that is cooking through U.S. legislative channels is a move to eliminate the automatic awarding of citizenship to babies born to illegal immigrants in the U.S. About 340,000 babies are born to illegal Hispanics in the U.S. each year; and these “anchor babies” serve as justification for keeping their parents in the U.S. permanently, despite that fact that the parents are illegals.
If you wish to contribute to the passage of this kind of legislation, I would appeal to you to write to your Congressional representative and ask him/her to vote for and support the passage of the Birthright Citizenship Act of 2011 (H.R. 140).
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Sermon on the Mount. Do Christians Obey It? NO! Why?
A question is often asked by Muslims: Do you Christians obey the Sermon on the Mount? If we answer 'yes', he will believe we are hypocrites, for nobody does and nobody can. If we answer 'no' then he will tell us to go home and practice what we preach before trying to teach it to him.
So…what can we say about the Sermon on the Mount, a real cornerstone to our Christian faith? The uncompromising absolutism and perfectionism of our Lord's ethical teaching in the Sermon on the Mount can be most clearly seen in his conception of the holiness of God. It is because we believe that Jesus reveals God to us in all that He was, said and did--including his ethical teaching--that we can accept the Sermon on the Mount into our faith experience with Him. We see that the ethics of Jesus show us what man is NOT and what God IS. Our Lord's teaching does not relate man to man so much as it relates God to man. Put in another way, when a man stands in the presence of God, after having had Jesus as his Teacher, he realizes that his ethics are not God’s ethics. Man’s ethics were designed to help and protect man against man in the crosscurrents of conflicting social claims. Man’s ethics come from the practical efforts to control the explosions caused by aggressive egoism, and they are not the ethics of pure love and absolute, infinite perfection. Man’s ethics are but the makeshift measures of a corrupt humanity in its effort to control and suppress the grosser forms of evil in society. The man standing in the presence of God, as Jesus presented Him, understands that he will be judged, not by the standard of his own very best efforts, but by the standard implied and expressed in the ethics of Jesus.
For the Christian, the Sermon on the Mount is the inspiration and the motivating force behind his every ethical decision-—achievable or not-—these principles are the things that should motivate our every decision. The principles of the Sermon on the Mount should, also, motivate and drive every policy decision made by our government and by other organizations to which we belong.
So…what can we say about the Sermon on the Mount, a real cornerstone to our Christian faith? The uncompromising absolutism and perfectionism of our Lord's ethical teaching in the Sermon on the Mount can be most clearly seen in his conception of the holiness of God. It is because we believe that Jesus reveals God to us in all that He was, said and did--including his ethical teaching--that we can accept the Sermon on the Mount into our faith experience with Him. We see that the ethics of Jesus show us what man is NOT and what God IS. Our Lord's teaching does not relate man to man so much as it relates God to man. Put in another way, when a man stands in the presence of God, after having had Jesus as his Teacher, he realizes that his ethics are not God’s ethics. Man’s ethics were designed to help and protect man against man in the crosscurrents of conflicting social claims. Man’s ethics come from the practical efforts to control the explosions caused by aggressive egoism, and they are not the ethics of pure love and absolute, infinite perfection. Man’s ethics are but the makeshift measures of a corrupt humanity in its effort to control and suppress the grosser forms of evil in society. The man standing in the presence of God, as Jesus presented Him, understands that he will be judged, not by the standard of his own very best efforts, but by the standard implied and expressed in the ethics of Jesus.
For the Christian, the Sermon on the Mount is the inspiration and the motivating force behind his every ethical decision-—achievable or not-—these principles are the things that should motivate our every decision. The principles of the Sermon on the Mount should, also, motivate and drive every policy decision made by our government and by other organizations to which we belong.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
The Golden Rule in Islam?? Not a chance!
Howard P. Kainz of Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin writes in First Things March 2011, page 10:
“In my research, I have found that there are clear cognates to the Golden Rule in Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Judaism but that Islam mandates reciprocity and amity only among fellow Muslims—not with unbelievers. In fact, one finds in the Qur’an the exact opposite of the Golden Rule. For example, Surah 48:29 reads, ‘Muhammad is the messenger of Allah; and those who are with him are strong against unbelievers [but] compassionate among each other.”
“In my research, I have found that there are clear cognates to the Golden Rule in Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Judaism but that Islam mandates reciprocity and amity only among fellow Muslims—not with unbelievers. In fact, one finds in the Qur’an the exact opposite of the Golden Rule. For example, Surah 48:29 reads, ‘Muhammad is the messenger of Allah; and those who are with him are strong against unbelievers [but] compassionate among each other.”
Monday, February 14, 2011
Refuting the Liberal Press
On 2/12/11, the Denver Post, no friend of conservatives in this city, ran a very misleading article on their front page reporting what they called a “sea change” in policy at Focus on the Family toward the abortion industry. They reported that Mr. Jim Daly, the president of Focus was going to dialog with Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains to try to help them reach their goal of making abortion “rare.” Below is a letter I wrote to Mr. Daly concerning that article:
Dear Mr. Daly,
My wife and I have been long time supporters of FOTF; and we will continue to support that fine Christian ministry. We have been deeply involved in the Pro-Life movement since the Roe v. Wade decision of 1973; and we are the founders of Caring Hands Pregnancy Center in southwest Denver.
I read with deep angst the article in the Denver Post of 2/12/11 which referred to the “sea change” of policy in FOTF. The article implied that Focus would begin to compromise with Planned Parenthood on the abortion issue. I listened to that program; and determined that the Post’s article was a gross misstatement, obviously designed to diminish conservative support for the FOTF ministry. It did not seem to me that Focus is even thinking about changing its attitude toward this horrendous problem in our country; and I am very thankful for that.
I sent an e-mail to Electa Draper, the author of the article protesting her misleading article.
All that being said, I think it is pointless to try to dialog with leaders of the abortion movement about their purported goal of making abortion “rare.” If they really wanted to do that, they have had many opportunities to do it in the past, which they have not done. As a matter of fact, they have done everything they could do to make abortion a common procedure in the United States. Their condom education program in schools and media has encouraged young people to have more and more sex outside of marriage; this produces ever more abortion business for them—which makes them more and more income. They know very well that the most effective way to get a teenager pregnant it is to put her on birth control pills, and that is just another avenue through which they are advancing their grizzly business.
If you really want to talk with the leaders of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains about how you can help them make abortion “rare,” I guess there would be no harm in that; but I would not expect anything good to come of those talks. I do not recommend talking with them!
Your colleague in saving unborn life,
Edward Manring, M.D., M.S.
Dear Mr. Daly,
My wife and I have been long time supporters of FOTF; and we will continue to support that fine Christian ministry. We have been deeply involved in the Pro-Life movement since the Roe v. Wade decision of 1973; and we are the founders of Caring Hands Pregnancy Center in southwest Denver.
I read with deep angst the article in the Denver Post of 2/12/11 which referred to the “sea change” of policy in FOTF. The article implied that Focus would begin to compromise with Planned Parenthood on the abortion issue. I listened to that program; and determined that the Post’s article was a gross misstatement, obviously designed to diminish conservative support for the FOTF ministry. It did not seem to me that Focus is even thinking about changing its attitude toward this horrendous problem in our country; and I am very thankful for that.
I sent an e-mail to Electa Draper, the author of the article protesting her misleading article.
All that being said, I think it is pointless to try to dialog with leaders of the abortion movement about their purported goal of making abortion “rare.” If they really wanted to do that, they have had many opportunities to do it in the past, which they have not done. As a matter of fact, they have done everything they could do to make abortion a common procedure in the United States. Their condom education program in schools and media has encouraged young people to have more and more sex outside of marriage; this produces ever more abortion business for them—which makes them more and more income. They know very well that the most effective way to get a teenager pregnant it is to put her on birth control pills, and that is just another avenue through which they are advancing their grizzly business.
If you really want to talk with the leaders of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains about how you can help them make abortion “rare,” I guess there would be no harm in that; but I would not expect anything good to come of those talks. I do not recommend talking with them!
Your colleague in saving unborn life,
Edward Manring, M.D., M.S.
Monday, February 7, 2011
States Are Finally Getting The Republican Message
The Wall Street Journal reported today on its 1st page the following couple of paragraphs:
“Governors around the U.S. are proposing to balance their states’ budgets with a long list of cuts and almost no new taxes, reflecting a goal by politicians from both parties to erase deficits chiefly by shrinking government.
“On Monday, Florida Gov. Rick Scott, a newly elected Republican, is expected to issue a budget that cuts state spending by $5 billion and overhauls public employee pensions.
“A democratic governor, John Kitzhaber of Oregon, has proposed a two-year budget that would make cuts to mental health institutions and reduce state Medicaid reimbursements to doctors and hospitals. Cuts to Medicaid, a joint state-federal program, are some of governors’ largest proposed reductions.”
Unfortunately, Colorado’s governor and legislature do not seem to be following this national trend. The Denver Post reported today that, “The total budget in the current fiscal year, which ends in June, is $18.2 billion. While Ritter's proposal for the 2011-12 year would be nearly $1 billion larger, revenues have not grown fast enough to keep up with school and college enrollment and human services caseload growth.”
The Governor presented his proposed budget to the state legislature's Joint Budget Committee on Nov. 2, 2010. The committee will draft its own budget and the legislature will vote in March 2011.
Readers of this blog post could do well to contact their state legislators and tell them to cut the state spending—there is no more money around to pay for expensive government.
“Governors around the U.S. are proposing to balance their states’ budgets with a long list of cuts and almost no new taxes, reflecting a goal by politicians from both parties to erase deficits chiefly by shrinking government.
“On Monday, Florida Gov. Rick Scott, a newly elected Republican, is expected to issue a budget that cuts state spending by $5 billion and overhauls public employee pensions.
“A democratic governor, John Kitzhaber of Oregon, has proposed a two-year budget that would make cuts to mental health institutions and reduce state Medicaid reimbursements to doctors and hospitals. Cuts to Medicaid, a joint state-federal program, are some of governors’ largest proposed reductions.”
Unfortunately, Colorado’s governor and legislature do not seem to be following this national trend. The Denver Post reported today that, “The total budget in the current fiscal year, which ends in June, is $18.2 billion. While Ritter's proposal for the 2011-12 year would be nearly $1 billion larger, revenues have not grown fast enough to keep up with school and college enrollment and human services caseload growth.”
The Governor presented his proposed budget to the state legislature's Joint Budget Committee on Nov. 2, 2010. The committee will draft its own budget and the legislature will vote in March 2011.
Readers of this blog post could do well to contact their state legislators and tell them to cut the state spending—there is no more money around to pay for expensive government.
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