1/31/2004
White Horses and Black Horses
#24 A Letter
To Lisa Deffendall, Education Writer at the Lexington Herald-Leader
SCHOOLS DISCIPLINE BLACKS MORE – NEW STATE DATA SHOW IMBALANCE IN SUSPENSIONS –FAYETTE’S DISPROPORTION BALLOONED.
Had there been more room I expect there also would have been:
THE SKY IS FALLING, THE SKY IS FALLING!!!!!!
I don’t suppose it has occurred to anyone at the H-L that these statistics showing about twice as many black students as white students being suspended for breaking the law or the school board’s rules might simply be the fulfillment of Martin Luther King’s dream? Could it be that students are being judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin?
This big long article discussing disproportion reminds me of an old comedy record I had as a child, before political correctness. There were to good ole boys (they sounded black, called themselves the Two Black Crows) sitting on the stoop looking across the road at a field full of black and white horses, For about ten minutes they discussed why it might be that the white horses ate more than the black horses. Eventually, having totally exhausted numerous possibilities, they concluded it was because there were more white horses than black horses.
If more black students in Kentucky are suspended for breaking the law than white students are suspended for breaking the law, could it possibly be that more black students break the law? The Rev. Bob Brown observes, “This is very frightening. It smacks of gross disproportion.” It is frightening when students break the law – whatever their color. It is more frightening when the powers that be begin to decide that the punishment of lawbreakers must somehow be discriminatory if it does not follow the statistical proportions of black and white in the school population.
The real question to ask is: How many white students and how many black students break the law and escape suspension? I doubt that these statistics are collected. If there is disproportion here it certainly should be addressed. All lawbreakers should be treated equally. But the schools should not be required to balance the statistical percentages by fudging their actions when the law is broken. The school should identify and deal with every lawbreaker and let the statistics fall where they may.
You suggest triage for this serious problem. I suggest the triage begin with the preachers and promoters of black victimhood like Merelene Davis and your contributing columnist Jim Thurman who loudly promote reparations and accountibility of the white population and the school board and just as loudly scream "discrimination" when the idea of accountibility is extended to black students and black families.
To Lisa Deffendall, Education Writer at the Lexington Herald-Leader
SCHOOLS DISCIPLINE BLACKS MORE – NEW STATE DATA SHOW IMBALANCE IN SUSPENSIONS –FAYETTE’S DISPROPORTION BALLOONED.
Had there been more room I expect there also would have been:
THE SKY IS FALLING, THE SKY IS FALLING!!!!!!
I don’t suppose it has occurred to anyone at the H-L that these statistics showing about twice as many black students as white students being suspended for breaking the law or the school board’s rules might simply be the fulfillment of Martin Luther King’s dream? Could it be that students are being judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin?
This big long article discussing disproportion reminds me of an old comedy record I had as a child, before political correctness. There were to good ole boys (they sounded black, called themselves the Two Black Crows) sitting on the stoop looking across the road at a field full of black and white horses, For about ten minutes they discussed why it might be that the white horses ate more than the black horses. Eventually, having totally exhausted numerous possibilities, they concluded it was because there were more white horses than black horses.
If more black students in Kentucky are suspended for breaking the law than white students are suspended for breaking the law, could it possibly be that more black students break the law? The Rev. Bob Brown observes, “This is very frightening. It smacks of gross disproportion.” It is frightening when students break the law – whatever their color. It is more frightening when the powers that be begin to decide that the punishment of lawbreakers must somehow be discriminatory if it does not follow the statistical proportions of black and white in the school population.
The real question to ask is: How many white students and how many black students break the law and escape suspension? I doubt that these statistics are collected. If there is disproportion here it certainly should be addressed. All lawbreakers should be treated equally. But the schools should not be required to balance the statistical percentages by fudging their actions when the law is broken. The school should identify and deal with every lawbreaker and let the statistics fall where they may.
You suggest triage for this serious problem. I suggest the triage begin with the preachers and promoters of black victimhood like Merelene Davis and your contributing columnist Jim Thurman who loudly promote reparations and accountibility of the white population and the school board and just as loudly scream "discrimination" when the idea of accountibility is extended to black students and black families.
1/26/2004
Just Words
Blog #23
Just Words
I have been thinking about words and our manner of speaking lately.
The jargon of teenagers normally changes from generation to generation. What was “cool” to me was “rad” to my son and is “hot” (or sometimes “nice” or even maybe back to “cool”) to my grandson. For some reason many of these “in” words of the teen group irritate or aggravate the grown-ups. Although this may not be the primary purpose of teenage lingo, it certainly is one of the secondary benefits to the teenagers who generally feel it their duty to cause consternation among the adults.
Mercifully, these things, like zits and puppy love, usually pass. The Teen gets to college and finds that the teachers require grown-up language. They get to the employment office and find no place on the application form for cool, rad, or hot. Less mercifully, unlike words themselves, some habits of speaking developed by teens do not always pass.
To overhear two teenagers gushing out hundreds of “I go, he goes, I’m alls” while trying to tell a simple story that should take two or three brief sentences is irritating to anyone who appreciates the English language. To hear a couple of forty-somethings talking this way provokes a feeling of sadness akin to what you might get if you were visit the local high school and find half the juniors and seniors still sucking their thumbs. The “Go-Like-All” syndrome is a kind of shorthand that its users will admit saves them from the onerous task of thinking before they speak and expressing themselves clearly and directly. It somehow seems to do for putting out a flood of emotion, but makes it difficult to communicate content to a thinking person.
A part of this problem can be laid at the door of the public schools. The most visible evidence of this can be seen at any post-UK basketball game press conference in which the stars are asked questions by the press. They are all fine young men who are good at what they do but none of them can get a simple sentence out without fatally fracturing the English language. This is not a new problem. Long ago I inherited a secretary who could manage to misspell a single syllable word three different ways in the same letter.
Plain speaking and proper speaking are not as highly valued as athletic performance. My wife once wrote a letter to the editor of the Lexington Herald-Leader praising Tim Couch’s prowess on the football field when he left for the big time without graduating. She opined that he would have been better off to stay another year in school and learn to speak the King’s English. She got two angry phone calls from Eastern Kentucky women who sounded like they would lynch her if they had half a chance.
The other day I read someone received an award for the best idea of the year. His idea was that college athletes should be able to play basketball, football, or whatever four 4 years without having to go to school at the same time. Then they should do their four years of college. This might work if the school years preceded the sporting years. As it is, the better they play the sooner they forsake the quest for literacy for fame and a Cadillac for a significant other. It would be a whole lot simpler to just teach children to read, to write and to speak properly in elementary school.
Lastly, the misuse of words can greatly inhibit effective communications. Have you ever had a friend who plugs his favorite word into every gap in his conversation? I have and I soon find myself counting these unnecessary words rather than paying attention to what is said. Lately the word “just” has become such a word for me. In our church communion is served by the Elders every week. Each week a different Elder is assigned the task of praying over the bread and the wine. Several months ago I noticed a word recurring in these prayers – “Our Father we JUST come to thank You…”
JUST was used often by those who were leading in prayer. I started thinking about JUST instead of listening to the prayers. I started counting the JUSTs. I started meditating on JUST.
Here are the things I thought about:
1. “Just” seems uncertain, ambiguous, lukewarm, hesitant, a meaningless connector. We pray, “We just come to thank the Lord,” or we sing, “Just praise the Lord.”
2. It also has a sense of caveat about it, and a kind of false humility – as “Just possibly the finest furniture in America,” or “It’s just little me, don’t take this too seriously.” It makes me think of the gluttony of Delicacy described by C.S. Lewis in “Screwtape Letters.” He describes a woman before whom a lovely tea has been set with many good things and much effort. Her response is “Oh please…all I want is a cup of tea, weak but not too weak, and the teeniest, weeniest bit of really crisp toast… Because what she wants is smaller and less costly than what has been set before her, she never recognizes as gluttony her determination to get what she wants, however troublesome it may be to others.” The word JUST is not here but its spirit is in “all I want.”
3. When used as a request it implies a limited obligation, “Will you just take the trash out?” but is usually followed by others, “Mow the lawn, wash the car and paint the garage as long as you are out there!” All these requests are legitimate, but by including JUST, a totally unnecessary word, the potential for some aggravation is introduced.
I close with two quotations, the first from Strunk’s “Elements of Style,” the second from the Apostle James:
“Vigorous writing (and speaking for that matter) is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines, and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.”
“And since you know He cares, let your language show it. Don’t add words like ‘I swear to God’ to your own words. Don’t show your impatience by concocting oaths to hurry up God. Just (here a very proper use of this word) say yes or no. Just say what is true. That way, your language can’t be used against you.” 5.12, The Message
Just Words
I have been thinking about words and our manner of speaking lately.
The jargon of teenagers normally changes from generation to generation. What was “cool” to me was “rad” to my son and is “hot” (or sometimes “nice” or even maybe back to “cool”) to my grandson. For some reason many of these “in” words of the teen group irritate or aggravate the grown-ups. Although this may not be the primary purpose of teenage lingo, it certainly is one of the secondary benefits to the teenagers who generally feel it their duty to cause consternation among the adults.
Mercifully, these things, like zits and puppy love, usually pass. The Teen gets to college and finds that the teachers require grown-up language. They get to the employment office and find no place on the application form for cool, rad, or hot. Less mercifully, unlike words themselves, some habits of speaking developed by teens do not always pass.
To overhear two teenagers gushing out hundreds of “I go, he goes, I’m alls” while trying to tell a simple story that should take two or three brief sentences is irritating to anyone who appreciates the English language. To hear a couple of forty-somethings talking this way provokes a feeling of sadness akin to what you might get if you were visit the local high school and find half the juniors and seniors still sucking their thumbs. The “Go-Like-All” syndrome is a kind of shorthand that its users will admit saves them from the onerous task of thinking before they speak and expressing themselves clearly and directly. It somehow seems to do for putting out a flood of emotion, but makes it difficult to communicate content to a thinking person.
A part of this problem can be laid at the door of the public schools. The most visible evidence of this can be seen at any post-UK basketball game press conference in which the stars are asked questions by the press. They are all fine young men who are good at what they do but none of them can get a simple sentence out without fatally fracturing the English language. This is not a new problem. Long ago I inherited a secretary who could manage to misspell a single syllable word three different ways in the same letter.
Plain speaking and proper speaking are not as highly valued as athletic performance. My wife once wrote a letter to the editor of the Lexington Herald-Leader praising Tim Couch’s prowess on the football field when he left for the big time without graduating. She opined that he would have been better off to stay another year in school and learn to speak the King’s English. She got two angry phone calls from Eastern Kentucky women who sounded like they would lynch her if they had half a chance.
The other day I read someone received an award for the best idea of the year. His idea was that college athletes should be able to play basketball, football, or whatever four 4 years without having to go to school at the same time. Then they should do their four years of college. This might work if the school years preceded the sporting years. As it is, the better they play the sooner they forsake the quest for literacy for fame and a Cadillac for a significant other. It would be a whole lot simpler to just teach children to read, to write and to speak properly in elementary school.
Lastly, the misuse of words can greatly inhibit effective communications. Have you ever had a friend who plugs his favorite word into every gap in his conversation? I have and I soon find myself counting these unnecessary words rather than paying attention to what is said. Lately the word “just” has become such a word for me. In our church communion is served by the Elders every week. Each week a different Elder is assigned the task of praying over the bread and the wine. Several months ago I noticed a word recurring in these prayers – “Our Father we JUST come to thank You…”
JUST was used often by those who were leading in prayer. I started thinking about JUST instead of listening to the prayers. I started counting the JUSTs. I started meditating on JUST.
Here are the things I thought about:
1. “Just” seems uncertain, ambiguous, lukewarm, hesitant, a meaningless connector. We pray, “We just come to thank the Lord,” or we sing, “Just praise the Lord.”
2. It also has a sense of caveat about it, and a kind of false humility – as “Just possibly the finest furniture in America,” or “It’s just little me, don’t take this too seriously.” It makes me think of the gluttony of Delicacy described by C.S. Lewis in “Screwtape Letters.” He describes a woman before whom a lovely tea has been set with many good things and much effort. Her response is “Oh please…all I want is a cup of tea, weak but not too weak, and the teeniest, weeniest bit of really crisp toast… Because what she wants is smaller and less costly than what has been set before her, she never recognizes as gluttony her determination to get what she wants, however troublesome it may be to others.” The word JUST is not here but its spirit is in “all I want.”
3. When used as a request it implies a limited obligation, “Will you just take the trash out?” but is usually followed by others, “Mow the lawn, wash the car and paint the garage as long as you are out there!” All these requests are legitimate, but by including JUST, a totally unnecessary word, the potential for some aggravation is introduced.
I close with two quotations, the first from Strunk’s “Elements of Style,” the second from the Apostle James:
“Vigorous writing (and speaking for that matter) is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines, and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.”
“And since you know He cares, let your language show it. Don’t add words like ‘I swear to God’ to your own words. Don’t show your impatience by concocting oaths to hurry up God. Just (here a very proper use of this word) say yes or no. Just say what is true. That way, your language can’t be used against you.” 5.12, The Message
1/18/2004
Abortion Wars II
Sanctity of Life Sunday, January 18, 2004
Number Twenty-Two
Abortion Wars II
After I had been the Executive Director of Women for Life of Lexington for some time I realized that something was missing from the extensive database of information they kept – a written position on abortion. At the next Board Meeting I asked the members, “What do we believe about abortion?”
The immediate response was, “We’re agin’ it!” That wasn’t quite enough for a position paper so we had an extended discussion. Following that discussion I drafted the first paper. This went through a number of revisions, was reviewed by several physicians, a representative selection of supporting Pastors, and about anyone else who was interested. The final product is reproduced below.
WOMEN FOR LIFE
POSITION ON ABORTION
6/13/94
The mission of Women For Life is to glorify God and present the good news of Jesus Christ through the promotion of a public awareness of the sanctity of life and the provision of professional Christian adoption services to children and families. In accomplishing this mission we oppose abortion on demand. The following statement spells out what this means to us in the form of an argument with three premises. We believe this argument is both biblically sound and scientifically valid.
1. The unborn, from the moment of conception, is fully human.
"To accept the fact that after fertilization has taken place a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or opinion. The human nature of the human being from conception to old age is not a metaphysical contention, it is plain experimental evidence." (French geneticist Jerome K. LeJeune, testifying before a Senate subcommittee)
"So therefore it is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception, when egg and sperm join to form the zygote, and this developing human is always a member of our species in all stages of its life." (Dr. Micheline Matthews-Roth, principal research associate in the Department of medicine, Harvard Medical School)
"..no witness raised any evidence to refute the biological fact that from the moment of conception there exists a distinct individual being who is alive and is of the human species. No witness challenged the scientific consensus that unborn children are 'human beings' insofar as the term is used to mean living beings of the human species...those witnesses who testified that science cannot say whether unborn children are human beings were speaking in every instance of the value question rather than the scientific question...these witnesses invoked their value preferences to redefine the term 'human being'...they took the view that each person may define as 'human' only those beings whose lives that person wants to value. Because they did not wish to accord intrinsic worth to the lives of unborn children, they refused to call them 'human beings,' regardless of the scientific evidence." (The Human Life Bill: Hearings on S. 158 Report together with additional and minority views to the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, made by its Subcommittee on Separation of Powers, 97th Congress, 1st session (1981))
Only the unthinking or the deceived would assert that the unborn is not human. When the human female conceives, it is biologically impossible for her to conceive any other life than human life.
For the Christian, the greatest revelation of the intrinsic worth of the unborn child is the Incarnation -- God came among us as a child! Jesus Christ went through every state of human development, from conception, through infancy, through boyhood, to young manhood. Then He died on a cross to save us all, the born and the unborn.
Human life is sacred because it comes from God and is intended to glorify Him.
2. It is wrong to kill the unborn human, no matter how many civil laws legalize the killing.
"You shall not murder (shed innocent blood)." (Exodus 20.14)
"The private use of lethal violence against an innocent party is an assault on the moral foundations of any just society." (George Weigel, President, Ethics and Public Policy Center, Washington, DC)
A very large number of the arguments for abortion on demand (for any reason at any time prior to birth) hinge on the semantic ability to de-humanize the unborn child. Those who offer these arguments may agree with number two, but they will fuzz up number one, often by shifting to "personhood" which might start at viability or to "legal (judge made) personhood," which does not begin until the baby is born. In making this shift, they appeal to law (Roe v. Wade), which is nothing more than a reflection of Justice Harry Blackmun's particular relative value system that not only flies in the face of traditional Biblical morality but doesn't even have a genuine constitutional foundation.
The right to life that every human being has is not dependent on the location of that life, the maturity of that life, or the wantedness of that life. The government does not give this right to life; it is given by God, the Creator of life, to all human beings at conception. Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me..." God said to the Prophet Jeremiah, “Before you were in the womb I knew you.”
3. With the rare exception of a medical attempt to save the life of a mother, every act of abortion is primarily intended to kill unborn human life.
We believe the intention of the physician in treating a pregnant woman should be that expressed in the oath that has guided physicians for almost 2,400 years,
"I will follow that method of treatment which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked, nor suggest any such counsel: furthermore, I will not give to any woman an instrument to produce abortion." From The Oath of Hippocrates
The physician's goal must always be to preserve or save all the life possible. If treatment of the mother to save her life results in the death of the unborn child, it must never be from the physician's lack of commitment to saving the lives of both.
4. Therefore, with the rare exception of a medical attempt to save the life of a mother, every act of abortion is wrong.
As stated above, this does not allow for a list of "accepted abortions" or "prohibited abortions." The only acceptable reason to cause the death of an unborn child is the inability of the physician to save both the life of the mother and the life of the child when both are threatened. Technically speaking, the death of the child in these circumstances should not be called an abortion.
------------------
In the current debates on these things, such as the fetal homicide bills presently before the Kentucky Legislature, the media usually obscure the distinction between the “beginning of life” of which there is no real scientific disagreement and “legal personhood,” which is a shifting human concept that is largely managed by the promoters of the culture of death. This is a good time for a letter to the editor that can speak the truth on this into the public square.
There is sincere disagreement among Christians on this whole subject. This statement was not designed to force a view on anyone but simply to state the view of a Christian organization that deals with abortion on a daily basis. It never hurts to stop and think through those things we confess to be true, to ask ourselves if we really believe them, and to consider the implications of these truths on the life of the community. Our beliefs do have consequences. One of the current Democratic wannabes (General Wesley Clark) recently stated his on this subject: "Life begins with the mother’s decision."
Number Twenty-Two
Abortion Wars II
After I had been the Executive Director of Women for Life of Lexington for some time I realized that something was missing from the extensive database of information they kept – a written position on abortion. At the next Board Meeting I asked the members, “What do we believe about abortion?”
The immediate response was, “We’re agin’ it!” That wasn’t quite enough for a position paper so we had an extended discussion. Following that discussion I drafted the first paper. This went through a number of revisions, was reviewed by several physicians, a representative selection of supporting Pastors, and about anyone else who was interested. The final product is reproduced below.
WOMEN FOR LIFE
POSITION ON ABORTION
6/13/94
The mission of Women For Life is to glorify God and present the good news of Jesus Christ through the promotion of a public awareness of the sanctity of life and the provision of professional Christian adoption services to children and families. In accomplishing this mission we oppose abortion on demand. The following statement spells out what this means to us in the form of an argument with three premises. We believe this argument is both biblically sound and scientifically valid.
1. The unborn, from the moment of conception, is fully human.
"To accept the fact that after fertilization has taken place a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or opinion. The human nature of the human being from conception to old age is not a metaphysical contention, it is plain experimental evidence." (French geneticist Jerome K. LeJeune, testifying before a Senate subcommittee)
"So therefore it is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception, when egg and sperm join to form the zygote, and this developing human is always a member of our species in all stages of its life." (Dr. Micheline Matthews-Roth, principal research associate in the Department of medicine, Harvard Medical School)
"..no witness raised any evidence to refute the biological fact that from the moment of conception there exists a distinct individual being who is alive and is of the human species. No witness challenged the scientific consensus that unborn children are 'human beings' insofar as the term is used to mean living beings of the human species...those witnesses who testified that science cannot say whether unborn children are human beings were speaking in every instance of the value question rather than the scientific question...these witnesses invoked their value preferences to redefine the term 'human being'...they took the view that each person may define as 'human' only those beings whose lives that person wants to value. Because they did not wish to accord intrinsic worth to the lives of unborn children, they refused to call them 'human beings,' regardless of the scientific evidence." (The Human Life Bill: Hearings on S. 158 Report together with additional and minority views to the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, made by its Subcommittee on Separation of Powers, 97th Congress, 1st session (1981))
Only the unthinking or the deceived would assert that the unborn is not human. When the human female conceives, it is biologically impossible for her to conceive any other life than human life.
For the Christian, the greatest revelation of the intrinsic worth of the unborn child is the Incarnation -- God came among us as a child! Jesus Christ went through every state of human development, from conception, through infancy, through boyhood, to young manhood. Then He died on a cross to save us all, the born and the unborn.
Human life is sacred because it comes from God and is intended to glorify Him.
2. It is wrong to kill the unborn human, no matter how many civil laws legalize the killing.
"You shall not murder (shed innocent blood)." (Exodus 20.14)
"The private use of lethal violence against an innocent party is an assault on the moral foundations of any just society." (George Weigel, President, Ethics and Public Policy Center, Washington, DC)
A very large number of the arguments for abortion on demand (for any reason at any time prior to birth) hinge on the semantic ability to de-humanize the unborn child. Those who offer these arguments may agree with number two, but they will fuzz up number one, often by shifting to "personhood" which might start at viability or to "legal (judge made) personhood," which does not begin until the baby is born. In making this shift, they appeal to law (Roe v. Wade), which is nothing more than a reflection of Justice Harry Blackmun's particular relative value system that not only flies in the face of traditional Biblical morality but doesn't even have a genuine constitutional foundation.
The right to life that every human being has is not dependent on the location of that life, the maturity of that life, or the wantedness of that life. The government does not give this right to life; it is given by God, the Creator of life, to all human beings at conception. Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me..." God said to the Prophet Jeremiah, “Before you were in the womb I knew you.”
3. With the rare exception of a medical attempt to save the life of a mother, every act of abortion is primarily intended to kill unborn human life.
We believe the intention of the physician in treating a pregnant woman should be that expressed in the oath that has guided physicians for almost 2,400 years,
"I will follow that method of treatment which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked, nor suggest any such counsel: furthermore, I will not give to any woman an instrument to produce abortion." From The Oath of Hippocrates
The physician's goal must always be to preserve or save all the life possible. If treatment of the mother to save her life results in the death of the unborn child, it must never be from the physician's lack of commitment to saving the lives of both.
4. Therefore, with the rare exception of a medical attempt to save the life of a mother, every act of abortion is wrong.
As stated above, this does not allow for a list of "accepted abortions" or "prohibited abortions." The only acceptable reason to cause the death of an unborn child is the inability of the physician to save both the life of the mother and the life of the child when both are threatened. Technically speaking, the death of the child in these circumstances should not be called an abortion.
------------------
In the current debates on these things, such as the fetal homicide bills presently before the Kentucky Legislature, the media usually obscure the distinction between the “beginning of life” of which there is no real scientific disagreement and “legal personhood,” which is a shifting human concept that is largely managed by the promoters of the culture of death. This is a good time for a letter to the editor that can speak the truth on this into the public square.
There is sincere disagreement among Christians on this whole subject. This statement was not designed to force a view on anyone but simply to state the view of a Christian organization that deals with abortion on a daily basis. It never hurts to stop and think through those things we confess to be true, to ask ourselves if we really believe them, and to consider the implications of these truths on the life of the community. Our beliefs do have consequences. One of the current Democratic wannabes (General Wesley Clark) recently stated his on this subject: "Life begins with the mother’s decision."
1/12/2004
The Abortion Wars
Number Twenty One
The Ballad of Nita and Clarence
The right to abort was “procreated” by the Supreme Court in 1973. As experience has proven, that right now exists for all women, at any time, for any reason. With an abortion rate of about 1.3 million a year, we come to the 31st anniversary of Roe v. Wade with almost 40 million dead babies, the victims of “choice.”
Until the Partial Birth Abortion Ban was signed recently, the Abortion Industry has largely succeeded in short-circuiting any restrictions on this “right” found in the Constitution by an activist Supreme Court. It may seem the Pro-life people have begun to turn the tide but the single-minded desperation of the Pro-death people and the liberal courts, are still alive and well.
Right now in Kentucky legal personhood does not come to a child until it has successfully exited its mother’s birth canal into the world. Our elected representatives in Frankfort are presently debating two bills that would give legal personhood to a fetus killed as a result of something done to the mother. These “fetal homicide bills” differ along party lines. One would make the baby a person at conception – that is the Republican version. The other would make the baby a person at “viability outside the womb,” (23 weeks is the latest figure) – that is the Democratic version. Personally, I stand with Dr. Seuss who said, “A person’s a person no matter how small.”
This is not a new problem. In his book, “The Atheism of the Early Church.” R.J. Rushdoony describes an early example of the battle as it was fought in first century Rome:
“Two battles, which marked the early church from the beginning, we still have with us today. The first was over the question of sovereignty or lord-ship, and the second was over the issue of abortion. Abortion was entirely legal within the Empire, but the early church instituted very severe penalties against any of its members involved in this very common practice. But that is not all. At the same time, the early church began to deal with the results of this world of abortion.
“Not every abortionist in those days functioned with the cold and brutal efficiency common to us now. There-fore, they were not always successful in aborting babies. As a result, when the unwanted babies were born, they were promptly taken and abandoned under the bridges of the river Tiber in Rome. In other cities there were places that were routinely used for abandoning babies.
“The Christians made it their habit immediately to go to the places where these babies were abandoned - to be devoured, as Tertullian said, by wild dogs - to collect these infants and pass them out from family to family. This tells us something about the life of faith among these believers. How many members of congregations today would welcome an officer of the church com-ing by with an abandoned baby or two, and feel it was their duty to rear them in faith.”
In 1991 this battle came into sharp focus over the appointment of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. He gave the Abortion Lobby nightmares. He was a self-made, conservative Black judge. He definitely did not have the proper opinions and bow to the proper gods. They were sure he would lead the charge in overturning Roe v. Wade. I watched the battle and wrote the following poem.
A BALLAD OF NITA AND CLARENCE
There once was a black man named Clarence
Who dreamed he might sit the High Court...
But the Daughters of Molech rose up with a wail,
"This fellow we'll have to abort!"
They tried it in trimester one, and failed,
Which really surprised them, we're told,
They blew it as well in trimester two,
Though their lawyers were brilliant and bold.
When Clarence was well into trimester three,
They returned to the fray with a will--
"We'll get him this time," they muttered one night,
"With a coathanger named Nita Hill."
Once more they failed, young Clarence was seated,
Vowing, but under his breath,
To confound the deceptions and slippery devices
Of the merchants of misery and death.
Judge Thomas has done a pretty good job on the Court but there are too many liberal activists there yet to endanger Roe v. Wade. The obstructionist Democrats in Congress have done a good job of making sure no conservatives are moving up the line towards the next Supreme Court vacancy.
I believe the election in 2004 will be pivotal in this battle. Unless the conservatives clear out some Democrats and some Democrats posing as moderate Republicans, enough to overcome the threats of filibuster in the Senate, we will get four more years of liberal obstructionism followed by the mother of all nightmares, President Hillary and slick Willie as first husband.
If God should deign to put his thumb on the scale in 2004, it will behoove the victors to do a real job of governing in the following four years. Failure here will just about guarantee the return of the Clintons and with them the acceleration of American culture on its slide toward the abyss.
Don’t mistake me; God is neither a Democrat nor a Republican. The Secularists have been taking over the Democratic Party for at least thirty years. The Religious Right would like to think they own the Republican Party. Of this division, Stanley Carlson-Thies, Fellow at the Center for Public Justice observes:
“While the professional politicians have been trying to domesticate religion either by ignoring it or capturing it…believers have been deciding that their faith must not be restricted to private life but should also direct their public life, including their political views and actions…serious faith can’t simply be cast aside like an overcoat upon entering political life…there is great danger in this political split between the Christian and the Secular.
“If Democrats come to believe that religion is irrelevant or dangerous for public policy, then the party is likely to forget that religion for most other Americans and for our civil society itself is not optional. Yet how will the Democratic politician who is convinced that faith should be private make just decisions about religion in public life—about the faith based initiative, faith in public schools, or dealing with international movements that are driven by religion?
“The Republican danger is the opposite: mistaking the party line for true religious insight. As committed believers of many faiths line up with the Republican Party, the temptation is great to think that the right religious view is whatever the party thinks is right. Then, instead of religion transcending and correcting the party’s flaws, it becomes a mere prop for the party.”
Life in the midst of wolves is never easy but we need to be as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves as we attempt to ensure that our politics are shaped by our faith and not the other way around.
The Ballad of Nita and Clarence
The right to abort was “procreated” by the Supreme Court in 1973. As experience has proven, that right now exists for all women, at any time, for any reason. With an abortion rate of about 1.3 million a year, we come to the 31st anniversary of Roe v. Wade with almost 40 million dead babies, the victims of “choice.”
Until the Partial Birth Abortion Ban was signed recently, the Abortion Industry has largely succeeded in short-circuiting any restrictions on this “right” found in the Constitution by an activist Supreme Court. It may seem the Pro-life people have begun to turn the tide but the single-minded desperation of the Pro-death people and the liberal courts, are still alive and well.
Right now in Kentucky legal personhood does not come to a child until it has successfully exited its mother’s birth canal into the world. Our elected representatives in Frankfort are presently debating two bills that would give legal personhood to a fetus killed as a result of something done to the mother. These “fetal homicide bills” differ along party lines. One would make the baby a person at conception – that is the Republican version. The other would make the baby a person at “viability outside the womb,” (23 weeks is the latest figure) – that is the Democratic version. Personally, I stand with Dr. Seuss who said, “A person’s a person no matter how small.”
This is not a new problem. In his book, “The Atheism of the Early Church.” R.J. Rushdoony describes an early example of the battle as it was fought in first century Rome:
“Two battles, which marked the early church from the beginning, we still have with us today. The first was over the question of sovereignty or lord-ship, and the second was over the issue of abortion. Abortion was entirely legal within the Empire, but the early church instituted very severe penalties against any of its members involved in this very common practice. But that is not all. At the same time, the early church began to deal with the results of this world of abortion.
“Not every abortionist in those days functioned with the cold and brutal efficiency common to us now. There-fore, they were not always successful in aborting babies. As a result, when the unwanted babies were born, they were promptly taken and abandoned under the bridges of the river Tiber in Rome. In other cities there were places that were routinely used for abandoning babies.
“The Christians made it their habit immediately to go to the places where these babies were abandoned - to be devoured, as Tertullian said, by wild dogs - to collect these infants and pass them out from family to family. This tells us something about the life of faith among these believers. How many members of congregations today would welcome an officer of the church com-ing by with an abandoned baby or two, and feel it was their duty to rear them in faith.”
In 1991 this battle came into sharp focus over the appointment of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. He gave the Abortion Lobby nightmares. He was a self-made, conservative Black judge. He definitely did not have the proper opinions and bow to the proper gods. They were sure he would lead the charge in overturning Roe v. Wade. I watched the battle and wrote the following poem.
A BALLAD OF NITA AND CLARENCE
There once was a black man named Clarence
Who dreamed he might sit the High Court...
But the Daughters of Molech rose up with a wail,
"This fellow we'll have to abort!"
They tried it in trimester one, and failed,
Which really surprised them, we're told,
They blew it as well in trimester two,
Though their lawyers were brilliant and bold.
When Clarence was well into trimester three,
They returned to the fray with a will--
"We'll get him this time," they muttered one night,
"With a coathanger named Nita Hill."
Once more they failed, young Clarence was seated,
Vowing, but under his breath,
To confound the deceptions and slippery devices
Of the merchants of misery and death.
Judge Thomas has done a pretty good job on the Court but there are too many liberal activists there yet to endanger Roe v. Wade. The obstructionist Democrats in Congress have done a good job of making sure no conservatives are moving up the line towards the next Supreme Court vacancy.
I believe the election in 2004 will be pivotal in this battle. Unless the conservatives clear out some Democrats and some Democrats posing as moderate Republicans, enough to overcome the threats of filibuster in the Senate, we will get four more years of liberal obstructionism followed by the mother of all nightmares, President Hillary and slick Willie as first husband.
If God should deign to put his thumb on the scale in 2004, it will behoove the victors to do a real job of governing in the following four years. Failure here will just about guarantee the return of the Clintons and with them the acceleration of American culture on its slide toward the abyss.
Don’t mistake me; God is neither a Democrat nor a Republican. The Secularists have been taking over the Democratic Party for at least thirty years. The Religious Right would like to think they own the Republican Party. Of this division, Stanley Carlson-Thies, Fellow at the Center for Public Justice observes:
“While the professional politicians have been trying to domesticate religion either by ignoring it or capturing it…believers have been deciding that their faith must not be restricted to private life but should also direct their public life, including their political views and actions…serious faith can’t simply be cast aside like an overcoat upon entering political life…there is great danger in this political split between the Christian and the Secular.
“If Democrats come to believe that religion is irrelevant or dangerous for public policy, then the party is likely to forget that religion for most other Americans and for our civil society itself is not optional. Yet how will the Democratic politician who is convinced that faith should be private make just decisions about religion in public life—about the faith based initiative, faith in public schools, or dealing with international movements that are driven by religion?
“The Republican danger is the opposite: mistaking the party line for true religious insight. As committed believers of many faiths line up with the Republican Party, the temptation is great to think that the right religious view is whatever the party thinks is right. Then, instead of religion transcending and correcting the party’s flaws, it becomes a mere prop for the party.”
Life in the midst of wolves is never easy but we need to be as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves as we attempt to ensure that our politics are shaped by our faith and not the other way around.
1/05/2004
Bumper Stickers and Truth
Number Twenty
Bumper Stickers and Truth
Stanley L. Jaki, in his excellent book, “Means to Message: A Treatise on Truth”, says,
“Not to start with things is to make things subservient to one's learned whim and fancy. Starting with ideas of things instead of the very things is a form of cheating as inadmissible as would be the rewriting the rules whereby baseball is played. There it is not possible to slide into second base without first having reached first base.”
It was while reading this book and thinking about these things that I wrote the following poem.
BUMPER STICKER
We had a bumper sticker,
A symbol of the strife between
Those who kill their babies
And those who give them life.
"God is Pro-life," the sticker said
In loud letters, blue and red.
For days this message bothered me,
I could not say just why.
At first I thought it was the fear
Of shooters driving by
As we headed farther West
To L.A.'s smoggy sky.
And then one day it came to me -
God surely is Pro-life,
He may even wear it on his hat,
But giving Him this label
Is like sliding into second
Before I've been to bat,
If I want to use a slogan,
To make a proper start,
How about "Abortion
Stops a beating heart"?
This statement is an object,
A fact that's plainly true,
An unshakeable foundation
For those words in red and blue.
I think that God must snicker
When we label him and try
To wave Him on a sticker
At the world that's passing by.
12/02
007
There is much talk about “abuse” these days. Children, wives, husbands, drugs, and a host of other things are abused in awful ways. All of these are sad, and many touch the heart, but none of them has the width or the depth of the current abuse of words. Words are so twisted and deformed and redefined and disguised that it is a wonder that we can communicate at all anymore. Just recently the paper reported a flap out west where a city employee noticed computer hardware labeled “Master” and “slave” and the employee filed a complaint about the language – he thought it might possibly hurt someone’s feelings – perhaps even cause some frail soul in the victim class to suffer irretrievable diminution of esteem.
With the PC Thought Police everywhere draining words of their plain meaning, watering down what is left until it is pale and tasteless, it becomes an act of revolution to simply make a plain declarative statement of a clear, unvarnished truth. Christians, as children of the one Who is the Truth, have a daily duty to participate in this revolutionary activity.
Bumper Stickers and Truth
Stanley L. Jaki, in his excellent book, “Means to Message: A Treatise on Truth”, says,
“Not to start with things is to make things subservient to one's learned whim and fancy. Starting with ideas of things instead of the very things is a form of cheating as inadmissible as would be the rewriting the rules whereby baseball is played. There it is not possible to slide into second base without first having reached first base.”
It was while reading this book and thinking about these things that I wrote the following poem.
BUMPER STICKER
We had a bumper sticker,
A symbol of the strife between
Those who kill their babies
And those who give them life.
"God is Pro-life," the sticker said
In loud letters, blue and red.
For days this message bothered me,
I could not say just why.
At first I thought it was the fear
Of shooters driving by
As we headed farther West
To L.A.'s smoggy sky.
And then one day it came to me -
God surely is Pro-life,
He may even wear it on his hat,
But giving Him this label
Is like sliding into second
Before I've been to bat,
If I want to use a slogan,
To make a proper start,
How about "Abortion
Stops a beating heart"?
This statement is an object,
A fact that's plainly true,
An unshakeable foundation
For those words in red and blue.
I think that God must snicker
When we label him and try
To wave Him on a sticker
At the world that's passing by.
12/02
007
There is much talk about “abuse” these days. Children, wives, husbands, drugs, and a host of other things are abused in awful ways. All of these are sad, and many touch the heart, but none of them has the width or the depth of the current abuse of words. Words are so twisted and deformed and redefined and disguised that it is a wonder that we can communicate at all anymore. Just recently the paper reported a flap out west where a city employee noticed computer hardware labeled “Master” and “slave” and the employee filed a complaint about the language – he thought it might possibly hurt someone’s feelings – perhaps even cause some frail soul in the victim class to suffer irretrievable diminution of esteem.
With the PC Thought Police everywhere draining words of their plain meaning, watering down what is left until it is pale and tasteless, it becomes an act of revolution to simply make a plain declarative statement of a clear, unvarnished truth. Christians, as children of the one Who is the Truth, have a daily duty to participate in this revolutionary activity.
