Why “Robin Hood” Government Doesn’t Work

In the novel “Atlas Shrugged,” Ayn Rand sought to show the benefits of competition-based capitalism over and against the faults of socialism.  Socialism is great in theory, but history has shown that it never works in practice.  Just like the motto of the antagonists in “Atlas Shrugged”- it sounds great, but in reality it is anything but great.

Their motto was, “from each according to his ability to each according to his need.”  At the surface, this sounds like a great idea.  Those who are producing more than they need provide for those who are not producing as much as they need.  I have too much, you don’t have enough, so let’s meet in the middle.  However, an old adage will help us see why this great-sounding theory fails in practice.

“If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.”

We could add the following to this old, familiar saying.  If the government takes fish from the man who can fish and gives them to the man who can’t, they will both starve.

The man who can fish has no reason to fish because the government takes his fish and gives it to those who cannot fish.  The man who cannot fish has no reason to learn because he is eating just fine without fishing.

Capitalism functions on the premise that if the government gets out of the way, then those who can fish will have every reason to fish and those who cannot fish will have every reason to learn.  Tax just enough to provide for those who can truly neither fish nor learn how, and enact and enforce minimal regulations.

Also, smaller government equals less spending.  Just like the answer for a man who has racked up credit card debt includes cutting his spending, so it is with government.  The answer for our deficit is certainly not more spending, but less. 

The best of the best in Ayn Rand’s fictional America stopped producing, and that is what it took for a return to competition-based capitalism.  President Obama is living in a fictional world if he thinks that his anti-capitalism measures will produce different results.  Hopefully our democratic elections will suffice to bring about the change in which we all must now believe and for which we all must now vote.

“Violence Is Not the Way”

“Non-Violent Resistance” by the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. should be required reading for every human being.  You should read this- especially if you wonder whether or not violence in the abortion battle is appropriate.

“The Negro Cannot Win”

“The Negro Cannot Win” by Reverend Clenard H. Childress, Jr.

Dr. Alveda King- “Abortion and Racism are Evil Twins”

Dr. Alveda King is the daughter of the Reverend Doctor A.D. King and the neice of the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr., two pastors and civil rights activists who were referred to as the “Sons of Thunder.” She has written a thundering op-ed that is well-worth the few minutes it takes to read.  I am confident that you will agree- I read it twice!

“Get Out of My Face!”

On the sidewalk in front of the Louisville abortion clinic this morning a woman said to me, “Get out of my face!” By the grace of God I ignored her request, and she will soon have a little grandbaby as a result.

I heard the woman before I saw her, as she yelled the same words at Rick, a man among men who was trying to tell her about the absolutely free crisis pregnancy center across the street.  I started walking in their direction, and she yelled these words at me.  She had a firm grasp on her crying daughter’s arm.  I told her that we were there to help, to which she responded, “You’re not helping!”

The compassion in my heart overflowed with these words to this mother and grandmother: “Ma’am, you’re not helping her.”  She said that this was her daughter’s choice.  With only knowledge of the manner in which they were walking toward the clinic, at best this was a decision to which the young girl was not firmly committed.  At worst, this was a decision that her mother was helping her to make.

At this point I directed my attention and words toward the young girl.  I said that her mother was right in that this was her choice.  You don’t have to do this, I told her. I told them about the clinic across the street where they could get a free ultrasound and free counseling, where they would not be charged a penny for anything, a place that exists to help people in situations like theirs.

As we got close to the abortion clinic, the girl’s mother saw a sign with a picture of an aborted baby.  This picture has a dime next to the baby to give it scale, and the baby’s head is smaller than the dime.  While nowhere near fully developed, this baby is clearly human.  The arms and legs, and even the entrails exposed by the dissection across the baby’s midsection, leave no doubt about this.  The girl’s mother told her not to look in that direction.  She responded to these words as we all would have- by looking in that direction.

They walked into the clinic, which to our side surely meant the baby’s demise and the mother’s emotional destruction.  O, we of little faith! God had other plans for that baby and that mother and that grandmother.

And, O, how that grandmother changed when they came back out of that clinic several minutes later!  I have no doubt that she was convinced that she was helping her daughter on the way in, because after the daughter changed her mind and they came out of the clinic’s doors she showed her commitment to truly helping her daughter.  She despised the shame of approaching a man for help who she had opposed only minutes earlier, and told me that they wanted to get the free ultrasound.  And, how sweetly the words fell on my ears when she spoke to her daughter on the short walk to the crisis pregnancy center of how precious and loved that baby will be!

A couple short minutes later she was on her cell phone telling somebody that “she” was getting a free ultrasound, and that “she” had decided to keep the baby.  Praise God for this blessing, and for the tremendous blessing of witnessing His wonder-working power first hand!

Obama at the NAACP- Inconsiderate?

President Obama spoke at the annual meeting of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People yesterday, and two of his main topics were education and health care.

What would you think of a Jewish man who rose to address a gathering of German Jews during the Holocaust, and chose for his topic education and health care?  Moreover, if that Jewish man were also a Nazi (as absurd as that would have been), would it make sense for a gathering of Jews to choose him as their speaker?

Now, to be fair, abortion among the African-American community is not exactly like the Holocaust.  There are two spots where these two scenarios differ.  In the place of the Nazis and their death camps, we have African-American mothers who abort their babies and the very wombs where their babies lodge, and the two are worth comparing.  Secondly, if we take the number of Jews who were brutally murdered in the Holocaust and multiply that number by three, then the number is only slightly higher than the number of African-American babies who have been brutally aborted since 1973.

And, in this spirit of fairness, Obama is not the equivalent of what it would have been for a German Jew to also be a Nazi.  But, when you consider that the abortion toll among African-Americans more than doubles the next leading cause of death for their race, it is safe to call abortion the greatest modern enemy of the African-American community.  With this in mind, the tragic irony of our first African-American President being our most ardent abortion supporter to occupy the oval office, and of the NAACP choosing him to address their annual meeting is something like what it would have been for a Jew to attain to a prominent government position during the Holocaust and be chosen to address a gathering of German Jews.

Against this backdrop, President Obama failing to address abortion in the African-American community to the NAACP is as absurd as it would have been for a speaker addressing German Jews during the Holocaust to fail to address the mass murder of Jews.

To modern African-Americans, education and health care should be important issues, but significantly secondary to their greatest enemy- abortion.

Silly Sotomayor, Answer the Questions!

Is it absurd to anybody else that Sotomayor is avoiding every question by saying that it would be inappropriate for her to answer questions relating to cases she might or will face if appointed?

I work for a mortgage company.  To me, Sotomayor’s responses are what it would be like if a person interviewing with a mortgage company refused to answer any questions relating to the mortgage business.  “That issue might come up after you hire me, so it would be inappropriate for me to answer it now.”

What could be more appropriate than answering questions concerning issues that you will have to face if given the prospective position?! The interviewer would think that the interviewee is crazy, and the interviewee would all but guarantee that he or she will still be in the job market afterward.

What could be more appropriate than Sotomayor answering questions that she might or will face if appointed?  Am I the only who thinks that she, like our hypothetical interviewee, is crazy for dodging perfectly relevant questions?  And for calling that which could not be more appropriate “inappropriate?”

Either a Lie or the Dumbest Thing in History!

Sotomayor on whether or not the Obama administration knows her position on abortion:

“I was asked no question by anyone including the president about my views on any specific legal issue.” (quote from the newspaper sitting in front of me, and probably one near you- go read it!)

If this statement is true, then the Obama administration is just plain dumb- so I hope she is lying!  We are talking about appointing a person to a judicial position, where her “views on… specific legal issue[s]” will play a part in shaping our nation.  Anybody with a brain who has anything to do with such an appointment should ask questions that deal with both generals and specifics.

We the people and the Obama administration need to know Sotomayer’s position on both general and specific legal issues so that we know what to expect from her as a potential Supreme Court Justice, in order to decide whether or not she is fit for such a significant position.

Then again, we elected our current President without pressing him to answer important questions- we elected him without thinking critically.  The man said that the question of when life begins is above his pay grade.  How much is the President paid again?  Now, in one sense, he was right.  The question of when life begins is a question that can and should only be answered by God.  And, in the religious setting where he gave his answer, this could be what our President meant.

But, if that is the case, then he comes to a woefully wrong conclusion.  The fact that God is the only one who can and should, furthermore who DOES (Jeremiah 1:5; Psalm 139:16 for example), answer that question means that we should not take life which He gives. The fact that the question of when life begins rests above Obama’s pay grade, and above ours, means that abortion should be illegal!

I guess since we elected him without pressing him to answer very relevant questions to the office which he was seeking, we should expect no different from him when appointing Supreme Court Justices.

America, this is the change you believed in.

Abortion is Neither the Beginning Nor the End of Abortion.

A couple of posts coming soon:

Abortion: Fruit not Root
Abortion is not the root problem, but the fruit of bigger problems- perhaps the biggest of which is our culture and the way in which it defines manhood and womanhood.  Our culture deceptively and destructively defines manhood and womanhood, and therefore people are deceived and destroyed in thinking that abortion is a better option than either adoption or parenting.

Abortion: Choosing Life Just the Beginning
Two couples who recently had appointments for abortions but chose life in Louisville really hit home to me that although choosing life is the answer, other issues arise when a woman/couple do so.  The first woman has a drug problem and the second is carrying the baby of a married man- who is not married to her.  As with other “defenses” of abortion, these issues are not valid defenses of abortion.  But, they raise valid concerns nonetheless.  We must not only help women/couples choose life, we must also help people with issues such as these which often lead women/couples to choose death.

Does America Need Another “Ubiquitous Pinup?”

The “Features” section of the June 29th newspaper had twin articles in honor of the passing of celebrities Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett.   The title for the article on Fawcett reads, “Farrah Fawcett: our last ubiquitous pinup.”  The author argues that we need a Fawcett-esque pinup who brings consensus to our concept of beauty. But, is this really what we need?

Ubiquitous, yes. Pinup, no.

In a world where there is a tragic surplus of single mothers, abortion, rape, child prostitution and molestation,  and conjugal infidelity, nearly all (if not all) of which is rooted in the mind of a boy who lusts and is taught, both actively and passively, that lust is okay; the last thing we need is a poster that objectifies the body of a woman, dissects her from her person, and allows/encourages/cultivates young boys to freely use an image of said woman in a way that dishonors her and disregards God.

Our thoughts become our words and our actions. Our culture tells our boys that lust is okay, and we are surprised when they grow up to get girls pregnant and abandon them, become rapists, are involved with child prostitution and molestation, or cheat on their wives.  We teach them that they needn’t control their eyes or minds, but are surprised when they fail to control their bodies.

The last thing that we need is a pinup in every boy’s bedroom, teaching him that it is okay to look at a girl as an object for his sexual pleasure.  Allowing and/or encouraging this with a girl they do not know merely prepares boys to do this with girls they do know. Also, this communicates to girls that they have no more meaning than to look good in a bathing suit and be silent, while boys use you for their sexual pleasure.

There is more to women and more to womanhood than to be used as an object for the sexual pleasure of boys (or men).

What we need, instead, is a ubiquitous concept of true, feminine beauty. Physical beauty is part of this, but there is much more. There is love, emotion, intelligence, strength, honesty, integrity, and care- and this list is nowhere near exhaustive!  None of which can be adequately communicated in a poster, and none of which is communicated by a pinup.

So, does America need another “Ubiquitous Pinup?” No! We need a ubiquitous concept of true, feminine beauty, which accounts for all that women and womanhood entail!

(Disclaimer time, baby! I am by no means accusing Fawcett of being at fault for the sexual sins that result from lust.  We have a culture where she was paid to pose for that picture.  She merely donned the swimsuit, smiled, and cashed the check. The blame, and my accusations, rest not on Fawcett, but squarely on the broad shoulders of our deceptive and destructive culture!)