Have fun. Don't get too angry.
Oh hell, go ahead, get angry. If no one got angry, it wouldn't be IBA.
From M. Simon at Power and Control:
I was reading the other day an article about the Angry Middle.
Here is something I found in the article that rings true:It's not a resurgent right wing that should trouble Obama's party. Indeed, the stronger the right's role in shaping the Republican message, the harder it will be for middle-of-the-road voters to use the Republicans to express their discontent.He goes on to lament socialism's prospects. Tough year for him. Tough decade in fact.
Here is what I see happening from watching the ebb and flow of politics from the last 20 or 30 years. The socialists get in and wreck the economy. Rs fix it. Then they think because they got in they have a mandate for moral crusades. The Terry Schiavo case was particularly egregious. The Rs get sloppy with their financials. Out they go. The Ds get in wreck the economy. Then the Rs come back.
Except we have a bunch of new anti-economic laws that NEVER get repealed. Sarbanes-Oxley is killing venture capital. So we get a ratchet effect.
Let me just outline a few of the ongoing effects (as evidenced by past and current moral crusades) of the Moral Socialism that periodically puts us in the hands of the socialists.
The Stalinist public school system (and mandatory attendance) was championed by Protestants as indoctrination centers for Catholics and Jews.
Alcohol prohibition was another moral crusade. Billy Sunday ring a bell? Fortunately that didn't last long.
Drug prohibition is on going. But that is failing too - politically. Medical marijuana got 58% of the vote in Maine vs 53% for traditional marriage.
Sooner or later moral socialism fails just as economic socialism does. For the same reason. Government can no more make us moral than it can make us prosperous.
I have nothing against moral crusades. Done in the private sector. It is when the moralists get the bright idea that with he help of government guns they can FORCE people to do the right thing.
Not in America. We are a nation full of people willing to break laws we don't agree with. Which is why drug prohibition with 95% compliance is such a failure.
So let me tell you what I see coming. Abortion. Not just restrictions which seem reasonable. But a total ban. Are there enough people who don't agree with this to form an abortion underground? No doubt. And then policing gets hard.
Access to women contemplating abortion is no longer frequent - because no woman wanting an abortion even if only fleetingly is going to want the fact known. Who wants to be investigated by the police?
Doctors may fall out of the practice but today we have drugs. RU-486 can be imported from France (drug dealers will handle it) or birth control pills could be used. So of course tighter restrictions on birth control pills will be required (and that will give us an increase in undesired pregnancies and thus increase the demand for illegal abortions - yipeee - we can then demand harsher laws and more of them to fix the problem).
Moral socialists suffer from the same defect that economic socialists have. They think: "once I have a law the law will be obeyed in the way I contemplate and voila a better world."
But it never works that way.
So what do I think should be done about abortion:
1. Kick the fn socialists out of government and get the economy moving again. Many abortions are for economic reasons. And stop staying home on election day because the fn R Party has served up some RINO. We at least have the ear of the RINO (Harriet Meyers?). The Communists are not going to listen.
2. End the drug war asap. Why are there so many abortions in the black community? Because we have a significant part of that community (about a third of all males) in jail or in the criminal justice system for prohibition violations. And we keep them there long enough to be sure to destroy any family they may have once had.
Demographics explains how it works.
It also explains "Girls gone wild". And where to go to find the wild women. Hint: look for places where the ratio of women to men is above 1.05 or more. Above 1.5 and you are in (you will pardon the expression) slut city. We are not being afflicted in this nation by declining morals and a culture of evil. We are afflicted by bad demographics. So how do you fix that? Beats me. Maybe we just have to learn to live with it unless we encourage differential abortion of females. No. I don't think so. Absolutely not.
3. More intensive teaching of birth control. The Baptists COULD do this. They just don't have the nerve. But if they were really sharp they could slip in a morals lesson or three while showing how to put a condom on a banana with your mouth.
4. Information - how well do crisis pregnancy centers work? Is there a better way? In fact more information on all programs that reduce abortion. Then the private funders can get the most bang for their buck.
There are probably more things to be done. Those come to my mind.
But for God's sake. Keep it out of the hands of government. That includes government funding.
I'd love to hear some major Moral Socialist come to his senses and say: "You know, what I want is of such intrinsic goodness that I don't need any government help to promote these ideas. And not only do I not need any help - I don't want any. There doesn't have to be a law. Social pressure can do the job. After all look at what changes to cultural attitudes have done for tobacco consumption. The only people who still smoke that stuff are hard core schizophrenics."
The only way government can accomplish anything is with sticks and stolen carrots.
Who do you want to steal from to accomplish your goal? Who do you want beaten with sticks?
Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods. - H. L. Mencken
Government functions by committing what in other contexts would be called crimes. It has a certain utility. But is a danger and ought to be strictly limited. Government can make you a slave - through taxation or though imprisonment. And slavery is against the law. Except for government.
In short: Government is a Criminal Enterprise.
"Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." Geo. Washington
Is it worth increasing the number of criminals in our society (nearly permanently) in exchange for being able to say: "It is against the law." Of course followed by (from a different sort of person): "I know a guy who knows a guy......."
I guess it all depends on what kind of world you want to live in.
6 comments:
Agreed! Because when you put a moral question solely in the hands of government, you excuse people from the responsibility of dealing with it themselves. Don't want the trouble of arguing with friends about smoking/drug use/seat belts/whatever? Pass a law! Persuasion is a frustrating chore and you may not be able to convince everybody else on the planet of how right you are and wrong they are. So just pass a law! Now it's out of your hands.
The "war on drugs" is an outrageous encroachment on individual rights that has had disastrous and lethal consequences. Adding birth control and abortificant drugs to the mix will pour gasoline on that fire.
Laws regarding abortion and determing what defines a human being with rights must be based in reason, not religious dogma, sentiment, or the wish to get a troublesome issue off the table by Passing a Law. And don't let government funding anywhere near it, on either side.
Alas, we've probably got about as much chance of working it out that way as we have of ending the wretched War on Drugs that has directly and indirectly cost the lives of millions.
Now I've got to go find some brain bleach to deal with a certain mental picture involving Baptists and bananas...
Recently watched a video that seemed to discuss at some length similar themes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPQS3d2hQOg&feature=player_embedded
RRA,
You said: when you put a moral question solely in the hands of government, you excuse people from the responsibility of dealing with it themselves.
I say: Yes, and that is the chief problem with Islam. It is enforced Virtue backed up by the threat of death.
Let's be clear, though, there is a difference between Islam and Christianity. I have not heard mainstream Christians call for death to abortionists. In fact, mainstream Christianity has only condemnation for the killers of Abortion Doctors.
But mainstream Islam, throughout the world (though, seeminly, to a far lesser degree in the USA) does call for death to their favorite targets, gays, apostates, and adulterers.
For the record, I do believe that abortion is the taking of a human life. However, I understand the justification for abortion in various circumstances, and I would not propose locking women in prison for having had an abortion. I think it is a very difficult subject. However, I am profoundly disturbed by women who will call their pregnancy "my baby" when they want the child and "just tissue" when they don't want the child.
The armed forces are really good for only two things of course .. breaking things and killing people.
The govt can by exception, GREAT EXCEPTION (Brown vs Board of Topeka) perform a good act, but what they really do is threaten and coerce the use of that same institution above, in the end, to achieve the needs of the day, or the morning, or the hour.
Virtue can only be it's own reward.
Knowledge we walk the razor's edge can be the only benefit for doing right. The moment any 'good' becomes law, ..EXPRESS ELEVATOR TO HELL.
Women as sovereign owners of their bodies appears to be a really hard concept to get across. I get profoundly disturbed by that, sometimes. But the point is we can't make laws based just on what we are personally "profoundly disturbed" about. Sometimes we have to just judge people on our own time.
Though the list would make for fascinating reading, no doubt.
Hey, like I said, "for the record".
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