Archive for the ‘Society’ Category
What is a “fair share?”
“We have a system that increasingly taxes work and subsidizes non work.” ~ Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize economist Was Friedman forecasting today’s reality? In one tax year reported in the Statistical Abstract of the United States, millionaires earned 100 times as much as people earning $30,000, but paid 300 times as much tax. The top 20% […]
The Welfare State
“A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.” ~ George Bernard Shaw Shouldn’t those advocating the United States continue its ever-expanding welfare state look more closely at what is happening in Europe under the staggering weight of its “cradle to grave” welfare mentality? Though it sounds charitable […]
Roe v. Wade – Did we get what we wanted?
Recently, parents successfully sued for “wrongful birth” because their child was born with Down syndrome, claiming if it had been accurately diagnosed early in the pregnancy, they would have chosen abortion. With Roe v. Wade, did well-meaning people start us down an unintended path to a child being worthy of birth only if the parents […]
Going home
For several months, I have been spending some time working in an emergency department in a suburb of Omaha, Nebraska; a few weeks ago taking a day off and driving 210 miles to the small town where I was born a little over 60 years ago, Holdrege, Nebraska. It was 52 years ago that we […]
Spoiled, dependent, entitled, indentured, enslaved
Are spoiled children born that way? According to British writer Roald Dahl, “Some children are spoiled and it is not their fault, it is their parents.” Spoiled children have parents who give them everything they want instead of teaching them to earn what they want, instead of teaching them responsibility and independence. Quite simply, parents […]
“Things”
In the movie “Parenthood,” the family’s grandmother offered advice to her son who was distraught; he quit his job and his wife was pregnant. Of life she said, “You know, it was just so interesting to me that the roller coaster could make me so frightened, so scared, so sick, so excited and so thrilled […]
Rape-rape?
Whoopi Goldberg said of producer Roman Polanski and his rape conviction of the 13-year-old girl he drugged and sodomized, “It wasn’t rape-rape. It was something else but I don’t believe it was rape-rape.” Have our values so deteriorated that we no longer recognize rape? Polanski is a free man, living in Europe where the cultures […]
Subject or citizen?
“Oh posterity, you will never know how much it cost us to preserve your freedom. I hope that you will make a good use of it.” – John Adams, second U.S. president American statesman Dean Alfange, born in Istanbul in 1899, reflected the values of an American citizen when he wrote, “I do not choose […]
Gratitude is a burden
“Men are more ready to repay an injury than a benefit because gratitude is a burden and revenge a pleasure.” Tacitus, 56 AD – 120 AD, Roman historian Does this sound a bit too much like today, suggesting we may have progressed little this past 2,000 years? Is gratitude still a burden? Is revenge still […]
Racism or common sense?
Reading about Arizona’s new law dealing with illegal aliens, I got the impression that Arizona had done something radical by requiring non-citizens to carry documents proving their legal status in our country. Not so. The new Arizona law only enforces existing federal law, the Alien Registration Act passed by Congress in 1940. Arizona is only […]
Michael, Tiger and Ed
Do you recognize these men? I suspect you know two of them. Michael is Michael Jackson, his death garnering more media attention than President Reagan’s funeral. Tiger is Tiger Woods, his philandering capturing near continuous media attention with each new girlfriend revealed. But who is Ed? We know every detail about Michael, the little boys, […]
Elite universities – principled?
Some of our nation’s elite universities, including Harvard, Columbia, Brown, Yale, Dartmouth, Stanford, Cornell, Princeton and Penn, produce many of our nation’s leaders. But, do they model the values we want in our leaders, the principles we aspire to as a country? Are they the principled guardians of the academic freedom and independent thought they […]
It’s our choice
“The real problem is in the hearts and minds of men. It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil spirit of man.” Albert Einstein Larry Echohawk, the assistant secretary for Indian Affairs at the U.S. Department of Interior, recently commented on the mistreatment of the “first Americans” by the United States government. […]
It’s our Constitution
Contrary to the wishes of Congress, the Supreme Court and the lower courts, “we the people” in our capacity as jurors and state legislators have the power to nullify laws we find unconstitutional. Did the founding fathers opine on this power? In 1790, James Wilson, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and […]
Supreme Court – Constitutional guardian or Guardian Council?
Does the Supreme Court submit to the authority of the United States Constitution, as it should? Or, is it complicit with Congress, functioning beyond its constitutional powers? In 1803, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Marshall, trying to preserve the checks and balances in the Constitution said, “To what purpose are powers limited, and […]
The Consitution v. the federal government
The Declaration of Independence states, “. . . these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States.” This sentiment was reaffirmed in 1781 in the Articles of Confederation which states, “Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation […]
The Bill of Prvileges
The Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments to the United States Constitution, was ratified by three-fourths of the states in 1791. The Constitution was ratified four years earlier in 1787. Our Bill of Rights came into existence amid debate and deliberation. Many anti-federalists who supported it previously opposed ratification of the Constitution because that […]
“Humans are more important than hardware”
On Christmas day, a Nigerian man boarded Northwest Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit with a bomb he planned to detonate over the United States, his success prevented more by luck than skill. The President responded saying there were “human and system failures” and the United States will do “whatever it takes” to defeat the […]
Politically correct bad science
The accuracy of environmental science research is critical because decrees by the United States impact the world, along with the consequences of that science. So, shouldn’t we question environmental science? And, if that science is solid, shouldn’t questioning be welcomed, rather than feared? One of the problems with environmental science is that it can become […]
What is public and what is private?
Does the public have a right to know everything? Does freedom of the press have any limits? Is anything private? Is everything fair game? How might Tiger Woods answer these questions? “Yes, no, no, yes.” Moreover, these questions have little to do with any claimed right to privacy, and all to do with the Constitution. […]