Narration
1 a : of, relating to, or constituting the grammatical mood that expresses the will to influence the behavior of another
Here, let me turn my podium around for one sermon and preach this one to the choir. Right as we are, ain't none of us being real right or completely real with ourselves, never mind being real with the Left. I aim to join the fight to write a new national narrative. One based on facts in evidence rather than scares and emotional responses to them. Because we on the right claim the nanny government is killing individual self determination and self preservation, we should be aware and vigilant to prevent this reliance on nannying within ourselves. I find we are neither aware nor vigilant. In fact we squeal just as loudly and just as foolishly as our opponents when one of our entitlements is targeted for elimination or reform. This is an appeal to get the right behind the cure to Liberal imperatives for the faith community to pay for abortion on demand. This is an appeal to re-establish the moral authority to demand value of life for the unborn and elderly and disabled.
You who know me, know I have intimate experience with the cost of recreational drug use on a family. I have lost relationships with immediate family members and nearly lost two more. Most telling, I could have been lost to drug addiction and culture myself. I mention this to preface my take on one issue in the discussion here, that I do not speak without compassion for the drug addicts and their spouses, children, siblings, parents, and friends.
While researching the success of Marxist ideology infiltrating our culture, I had a discussion with someone near and dear to me and I thought to demonstrate a right ideology to her. She agrees with my conservative principles completely, and she agrees with the detrimental effects of nanny governing on the black community in the inner cities. She agrees with me on the comparison of Democrat controlled cities and states with Republican controlled cities and states and their respective levels of peace and prosperity. She agrees with me on the detrimental effects on our ability to self preserve via nanny government's war on poverty. She agrees with me on the right and need to have access to weapons for self preservation. However, she cannot see the detrimental effects of the nanny state on our ability to self preserve via the war on drugs.
I have compared it to the legalization of alcohol with all that reasoning. I have described with evidence and reason the results of legalizing drugs in the Dutch culture. I show the statistics that drug use has fallen and the quality of drug through standardization has risen making them safer to use. The effects of drug use on the greater culture has greatly improved with fewer drug related deaths by infectious disease, overdose and automobile accidents plus the crime rate has fallen due to the reduced prices of recreational drugs and the elimination of profit to the street dealer. The facts that kids have greater access to illegal drugs than legal alcohol, that criminals are rewarded with extreme profit for criminality, that law enforcement along with everyone else lose respect for the rule of law due to unreasonable dictates; do not matter. No amount of information is going to affect her opinion. Even though I know her to be a reasonable person willing to consider the evidence and evaluate the value of each policy, she 'knows' drug use will increase and crime will increase because 'everybody' will start doing it. She is an ideologue. If I press at all, I can expect an emotional explosion. I'd rather keep our relationship than continue the discussion with her. You on the other hand, I want to win over at all costs.
Ann Coulter is sitting in the same pew and just as vehemently argues for the drug war without investigating the actual statistics and consequences. She was a guest on John Stossel's show when John presented these same statistics and this is one of the few times, perhaps the only time I've seen, Ann could not back her arguments by quoting off the top of her head the supporting studies, reports and stats for her position on any issue. Ann, I think we can all agree (in the choir room) is reflective, thoughtful, and knowledgable on the most controversial issues of our day, yet here she stubbornly and blindly clings to the 'facts she knows' which just aren't true. Enough conservatives are as much ideologues on this topic that it was established and remains law for 40 years when it is neither supported by the constitution nor the studies' data, nor the consequences. We are as much ideologues on legislating our morality as the Liberals are on legislating fairness which is their morality.
[By the way, Ann is going to be in San Luis Obispo at Cal Poly Feb 28, 2012 and I intend to be there. I love to watch her argue a red streak through the blue territory that is California's college campus.]
God help the politician who dares eyeball the Social Security boondoggle for reformative action. It may have been born on Liberal agenda, but it's now populated by both Democrats and Republicans and neither party has the political capital nor will to address it. President Bush attempted to by designing a progressive move to real investments, but the outcry from all sides shut him down rather decidedly. Which recipient of benefits who is ready to tear his head off, would not have done a better job with this responsibility were he left to his own devices? Nanny government underpays him the return on his investment because they decided to spend that investment (rewarding further poverty culture via welfare) and count on future generations entering the system to pay the return on the older accounts. Exactly the same scheme Bernie Madoff was convicted on.
Everyone knows this government sponsored 'Ponzi Scheme' is going to collapse, but nobody is willing to address it because it is a politician's instant career suicide. It is the living illustration of centralized management sold to the people by the New Deal and Great Society presidents. "You little people, don't worry your pretty little heads about your retirement, we'll take care of it for you." And the vast majority of the liberty culture swallowed that promise hook, line and sinker. Most never gave their retirement another thought until it came time to collect. Practically, the entire nation went to sleep on this issue until someone said, "It's failing." No matter how bad it is, nobody wants their benefits pulled or cut and nobody wants to protect new victims from being forced to pay for the old ones' present day benefits. At some point, we have to acknowledge the victims of government are screwed and whatever happens to political Bernie Madoff types, nothing is going to bring back the squandered wealth.
My point is, you don't know the level of your own indoctrination into the Marxist infiltration. The Overton Window draws the Right to the left with the Left's extreme, inexorable movement into Marxism. Everything we know as normal is far from reasonable or natural truth. How many times have I mentioned, "Everything I thought I knew was a lie? Everything I've been taught through education and main stream media and political speech is a manufactured narrative about the evil consequence of Christian morality and American imperialism." The conservative may talk liberty, but in reality we are as addicted to the Nanny government as the entitlement culture screaming "Eat the rich" at Wall St. The only difference is which nannying and based on what ideal. We eat the wealth of our young. OWS has some credibility based on 'what's good for the old is good for the young.' That my friends is not the American value and spirit of liberty.
Whatever your position on the recreational drug use issue, you have to acknowledge we have used up to and including deadly force to eliminate this behavior. In full knowledge of the failures of SSI and Welfare and thousands of other socially irresponsible programs implemented by force of law, we continue enrolling new victims into legislated moral imperatives. You can't expect to be taken seriously if you spout "Leave us alone" in one breath and espouse, defend or ignore conscripting legislation in the next. If you want to be credible on value of life and sexual deviance issues, you need the credibility which comes with consistency to carry the authority of real and honest morality. You can't demand your share of 'the promise' while the program burns the next generation.
This is where the Liberal and the Libertarian choose representatives who oppose your ability and willingness to dictate their behaviors and announce their intention to legislate their own moral imperative over you. You are only getting a tiny taste of left wing moral imperative with Obama's government arrangement to have national insurance pay for abortions and morning after pills with an unfunded mandate of your insurance premiums in direct opposition to your faith. Our moral imperative to legislate our personal level of morality onto the broader culture is exactly what the founders sought to avoid. They knew and spoke often on the greater restriction of immorality being the inner imperative rather than the fiercest, even deadliest outer imperative for a moral society.
All of these programs which are designed to take our self concern and assure our personal security for food safety, car safety, drug safety, alcohol safety, play safety, work safety, education, health care, self defense, retirement, endless etc's., work at putting to sleep the awareness of life's many dangers. They teach the culture government is responsible to guarantee you safety and health and success, even happiness. These ideas are the exact opposite of our founding fathers' vision. Is this our vision for America? If not, what is and how can we reach it? If so, how can we get back to it? I'm assuming the founders happened on something unique in history and we should be taking every drastic measure to preserve it.
There is only one moral authority to demonstrate right over wrong, good over bad, wisdom over folly. The founding fathers did it and they paid the price for it. We have to choose for ourselves the same kind of sacrifice they demonstrated for our own moral authority to fix the ills of our culture as they chose to fix the ills of theirs. I have little faith in the culture I observe to join me in this quest because it requires deep sacrifice. Few in history are willing to pledge their lives, their wealth, and their sacred honor together for a cause few can envision much less live out. The Black Robe Brigade are missing in action. The ability to articulate the vision, the need, and the reward is a rare commodity in a culture spiritually napping being fattened on licentiousness and ease.
The cure to immorality is awareness of the consequence of immorality. Step between a fool and his folly and the fool hates you and when he drives you away goes right back to his folly. Allow the full weight of his consequences to rain down on him, maybe he will self correct and maybe not. However, you see to the education and council of your child in observance of the fool and your child is saved by witness. As a culture people learn quickly the value of self preservation with minimal council and learn a fresh value for the best sources of wisdom. What we have such a hard time accepting is the inability of government legislating morality.
Yes, laws against murder and theft are legislating morality. Don't miss the forest for the trees. You couldn't legislate away alcohol use or abuse and you can't legislate away drug use or abuse. We tried it and got the mafia and international gangs and street wars for our efforts. You can legislate value for life if you have moral authority that comes with consistency. You can legislate the moral imperative to value gender identity if you have moral authority. What you can't legislate is whether people will choose to participate in unhealthy, self destructive, risky, shaming behavior on an individual basis. Allow the culture to deal with 'acceptable' and 'unacceptable' behaviors. If the individual, self aware and responsible for his own welfare, is not deterred there, they will not be deterred by law. So what is the point in making them wards of the state? Save your state funds, you won't need as many police, as many jails, as many hospitals, on and on it goes. Instead, use the unspent wealth on free councilors, clinics, recovery programs when the self destructive fool grabs a momentis lucidity and decides he needs reprogramming.
Are you receiving a government check? You are the problem. Are you advocating government do anything? You are the problem. Are you unprepared or unwilling to volunteer your skills, time and wealth to wean any willing soul off the government tit? You are the problem. That does not equal the sacrifice of our founding fathers. Yours is an easy sacrifice by comparison. If you have one demand to make of government, it should be consistent. It should be 'stop.' Stop spending what isn't yours, stop mandating responsibilities, stop criminalizing personal choices. If you tax it, repeal the tax. If you regulate it, repeal the regulation as far back as is functionally possible. Leave the people to their own devices, their own wits, their own compassion for one another, and their own self determination. If authority to act isn't mandated in the Constitution the founders gave us, DON'T ACT!! If authority to act is mandated, act ONLY WITHIN THE STATED BOUNDS!!!
As painful as it might be, we must begin to pull the wooly rug out from under the welfare, grant, subsidy, SSI, aid, unemployment, disabled, government check recipient. More to the point, we must begin to pull the wooly blanket from off the eyes of America's entitlement class. We must unite the TEA Party and the OWS mob under one agenda to cram government back in it's limiting box under the authority of the Constitution via the Enumerated Powers Act. If we stop eating the youth, perhaps they'll stop threatening to eat the successful. If they'll stop marauding thuggery, perhaps we'll stop dismissing their voice. They are angry because they are without hope. You should be angry too, but your anger should be used to guide their anger, rather than making them the target of your anger. They didn't enter Marxism by choice. You sent them into the lion's den. You agree with Marx more than you know. They're your national progeny.
If you want a city, county or state to disallow drugs, alcohol, or tobacco - fine, do it at the local level and allow people to go where it is legal if they want it and illegal if they don't want to be near it. Between the lesser powers, they can experiment and find out the level of freedom the people are willing to live with or without. However, at the federal level, we have to stuff government back under the constraints of the Constitution. If OWS and the TEA party can agree on anything, it should be this much. If you wish to continue the moral wars via legislature, be prepared for a U.S.S.R. style black market and criminal underclass. Be prepared for their police state and be prepared for an Arab Spring style collapse because our spoiled butts are not willing to live under a morality mandate from the Right or the Left.
: the act or process or an instance of narrating
Imperative
1 a : of, relating to, or constituting the grammatical mood that expresses the will to influence the behavior of another
b: expressive of a command, entreaty, or exhortation
c : having power to restrain, control, and direct
2: not to be avoided or evaded : necessary <an imperativeduty>
 |
| Let us acknowledge our own stink... |
You who know me, know I have intimate experience with the cost of recreational drug use on a family. I have lost relationships with immediate family members and nearly lost two more. Most telling, I could have been lost to drug addiction and culture myself. I mention this to preface my take on one issue in the discussion here, that I do not speak without compassion for the drug addicts and their spouses, children, siblings, parents, and friends.
While researching the success of Marxist ideology infiltrating our culture, I had a discussion with someone near and dear to me and I thought to demonstrate a right ideology to her. She agrees with my conservative principles completely, and she agrees with the detrimental effects of nanny governing on the black community in the inner cities. She agrees with me on the comparison of Democrat controlled cities and states with Republican controlled cities and states and their respective levels of peace and prosperity. She agrees with me on the detrimental effects on our ability to self preserve via nanny government's war on poverty. She agrees with me on the right and need to have access to weapons for self preservation. However, she cannot see the detrimental effects of the nanny state on our ability to self preserve via the war on drugs.
I have compared it to the legalization of alcohol with all that reasoning. I have described with evidence and reason the results of legalizing drugs in the Dutch culture. I show the statistics that drug use has fallen and the quality of drug through standardization has risen making them safer to use. The effects of drug use on the greater culture has greatly improved with fewer drug related deaths by infectious disease, overdose and automobile accidents plus the crime rate has fallen due to the reduced prices of recreational drugs and the elimination of profit to the street dealer. The facts that kids have greater access to illegal drugs than legal alcohol, that criminals are rewarded with extreme profit for criminality, that law enforcement along with everyone else lose respect for the rule of law due to unreasonable dictates; do not matter. No amount of information is going to affect her opinion. Even though I know her to be a reasonable person willing to consider the evidence and evaluate the value of each policy, she 'knows' drug use will increase and crime will increase because 'everybody' will start doing it. She is an ideologue. If I press at all, I can expect an emotional explosion. I'd rather keep our relationship than continue the discussion with her. You on the other hand, I want to win over at all costs.
Ann Coulter is sitting in the same pew and just as vehemently argues for the drug war without investigating the actual statistics and consequences. She was a guest on John Stossel's show when John presented these same statistics and this is one of the few times, perhaps the only time I've seen, Ann could not back her arguments by quoting off the top of her head the supporting studies, reports and stats for her position on any issue. Ann, I think we can all agree (in the choir room) is reflective, thoughtful, and knowledgable on the most controversial issues of our day, yet here she stubbornly and blindly clings to the 'facts she knows' which just aren't true. Enough conservatives are as much ideologues on this topic that it was established and remains law for 40 years when it is neither supported by the constitution nor the studies' data, nor the consequences. We are as much ideologues on legislating our morality as the Liberals are on legislating fairness which is their morality.
[By the way, Ann is going to be in San Luis Obispo at Cal Poly Feb 28, 2012 and I intend to be there. I love to watch her argue a red streak through the blue territory that is California's college campus.]
God help the politician who dares eyeball the Social Security boondoggle for reformative action. It may have been born on Liberal agenda, but it's now populated by both Democrats and Republicans and neither party has the political capital nor will to address it. President Bush attempted to by designing a progressive move to real investments, but the outcry from all sides shut him down rather decidedly. Which recipient of benefits who is ready to tear his head off, would not have done a better job with this responsibility were he left to his own devices? Nanny government underpays him the return on his investment because they decided to spend that investment (rewarding further poverty culture via welfare) and count on future generations entering the system to pay the return on the older accounts. Exactly the same scheme Bernie Madoff was convicted on.
Everyone knows this government sponsored 'Ponzi Scheme' is going to collapse, but nobody is willing to address it because it is a politician's instant career suicide. It is the living illustration of centralized management sold to the people by the New Deal and Great Society presidents. "You little people, don't worry your pretty little heads about your retirement, we'll take care of it for you." And the vast majority of the liberty culture swallowed that promise hook, line and sinker. Most never gave their retirement another thought until it came time to collect. Practically, the entire nation went to sleep on this issue until someone said, "It's failing." No matter how bad it is, nobody wants their benefits pulled or cut and nobody wants to protect new victims from being forced to pay for the old ones' present day benefits. At some point, we have to acknowledge the victims of government are screwed and whatever happens to political Bernie Madoff types, nothing is going to bring back the squandered wealth.
"All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, nor from want of honor or virtue, so much as downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation." John Adams
My point is, you don't know the level of your own indoctrination into the Marxist infiltration. The Overton Window draws the Right to the left with the Left's extreme, inexorable movement into Marxism. Everything we know as normal is far from reasonable or natural truth. How many times have I mentioned, "Everything I thought I knew was a lie? Everything I've been taught through education and main stream media and political speech is a manufactured narrative about the evil consequence of Christian morality and American imperialism." The conservative may talk liberty, but in reality we are as addicted to the Nanny government as the entitlement culture screaming "Eat the rich" at Wall St. The only difference is which nannying and based on what ideal. We eat the wealth of our young. OWS has some credibility based on 'what's good for the old is good for the young.' That my friends is not the American value and spirit of liberty. Whatever your position on the recreational drug use issue, you have to acknowledge we have used up to and including deadly force to eliminate this behavior. In full knowledge of the failures of SSI and Welfare and thousands of other socially irresponsible programs implemented by force of law, we continue enrolling new victims into legislated moral imperatives. You can't expect to be taken seriously if you spout "Leave us alone" in one breath and espouse, defend or ignore conscripting legislation in the next. If you want to be credible on value of life and sexual deviance issues, you need the credibility which comes with consistency to carry the authority of real and honest morality. You can't demand your share of 'the promise' while the program burns the next generation.
This is where the Liberal and the Libertarian choose representatives who oppose your ability and willingness to dictate their behaviors and announce their intention to legislate their own moral imperative over you. You are only getting a tiny taste of left wing moral imperative with Obama's government arrangement to have national insurance pay for abortions and morning after pills with an unfunded mandate of your insurance premiums in direct opposition to your faith. Our moral imperative to legislate our personal level of morality onto the broader culture is exactly what the founders sought to avoid. They knew and spoke often on the greater restriction of immorality being the inner imperative rather than the fiercest, even deadliest outer imperative for a moral society.
Whereas true religion and good morals are the only solid foundations of public liberty and happiness . . . it is hereby earnestly recommended to the several States to take the most effectual measures for the encouragement thereof." Continental Congress, 1778
"Men, in a word,must necessarily be controlled either by a power within them or by a power without them; either by the Word of God or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible or by the bayonet. Robert Winthrop, Speaker of the U. S. House
"(T)he foundation of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality; ...the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained..." George Washington, First Inaugural, April 30 1789
Art. 3. Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged. NorthWest Ordinance 1787
Let divines and philosophers, statesmen and patriots, unite their endeavors to renovate the age, by impressing the minds of men with the importance of educating their little boys and girls, of inculcating in the minds of youth the fear and love of the Deity. . . and, in subordination to these great principles, the love of their country. . . . In short, of leading them in the study and practice of the exalted virtues of the Christian system.
We have been a rich nation relatively speaking, for a very long time and most people do not relate to real poverty. This point is especially true due to the fact the authorities keep informing us the poverty level is somewhere between 'can't afford a new car every year' and can't afford my over valued house payment.' Real poverty is known as 'can't buy my baby treatment for colic or whooping cough, can't buy my near naked 10 year old girl clothes, can't buy myself a meal today or this week or this month.' Never mind the folks marching on Wall St. expecting corporations to abide by their standards. Standards which include severely limiting the amount of money successful people keep from their earnings in a year and diverting anything over that amount to people who will not work. Now imagine if their morality is forced on the greater American culture. All liberty is lost. The foundations of our great society will have been shattered. All merit and reward will have been eliminated reducing the founders' dream to a failure at last.
- History will also afford frequent opportunities of showing the necessity of a public religion. . . and the excellency of the Christian religion above all others, ancient or modern.
All of these programs which are designed to take our self concern and assure our personal security for food safety, car safety, drug safety, alcohol safety, play safety, work safety, education, health care, self defense, retirement, endless etc's., work at putting to sleep the awareness of life's many dangers. They teach the culture government is responsible to guarantee you safety and health and success, even happiness. These ideas are the exact opposite of our founding fathers' vision. Is this our vision for America? If not, what is and how can we reach it? If so, how can we get back to it? I'm assuming the founders happened on something unique in history and we should be taking every drastic measure to preserve it.
There is only one moral authority to demonstrate right over wrong, good over bad, wisdom over folly. The founding fathers did it and they paid the price for it. We have to choose for ourselves the same kind of sacrifice they demonstrated for our own moral authority to fix the ills of our culture as they chose to fix the ills of theirs. I have little faith in the culture I observe to join me in this quest because it requires deep sacrifice. Few in history are willing to pledge their lives, their wealth, and their sacred honor together for a cause few can envision much less live out. The Black Robe Brigade are missing in action. The ability to articulate the vision, the need, and the reward is a rare commodity in a culture spiritually napping being fattened on licentiousness and ease.
The cure to immorality is awareness of the consequence of immorality. Step between a fool and his folly and the fool hates you and when he drives you away goes right back to his folly. Allow the full weight of his consequences to rain down on him, maybe he will self correct and maybe not. However, you see to the education and council of your child in observance of the fool and your child is saved by witness. As a culture people learn quickly the value of self preservation with minimal council and learn a fresh value for the best sources of wisdom. What we have such a hard time accepting is the inability of government legislating morality.
Yes, laws against murder and theft are legislating morality. Don't miss the forest for the trees. You couldn't legislate away alcohol use or abuse and you can't legislate away drug use or abuse. We tried it and got the mafia and international gangs and street wars for our efforts. You can legislate value for life if you have moral authority that comes with consistency. You can legislate the moral imperative to value gender identity if you have moral authority. What you can't legislate is whether people will choose to participate in unhealthy, self destructive, risky, shaming behavior on an individual basis. Allow the culture to deal with 'acceptable' and 'unacceptable' behaviors. If the individual, self aware and responsible for his own welfare, is not deterred there, they will not be deterred by law. So what is the point in making them wards of the state? Save your state funds, you won't need as many police, as many jails, as many hospitals, on and on it goes. Instead, use the unspent wealth on free councilors, clinics, recovery programs when the self destructive fool grabs a momentis lucidity and decides he needs reprogramming.
Are you receiving a government check? You are the problem. Are you advocating government do anything? You are the problem. Are you unprepared or unwilling to volunteer your skills, time and wealth to wean any willing soul off the government tit? You are the problem. That does not equal the sacrifice of our founding fathers. Yours is an easy sacrifice by comparison. If you have one demand to make of government, it should be consistent. It should be 'stop.' Stop spending what isn't yours, stop mandating responsibilities, stop criminalizing personal choices. If you tax it, repeal the tax. If you regulate it, repeal the regulation as far back as is functionally possible. Leave the people to their own devices, their own wits, their own compassion for one another, and their own self determination. If authority to act isn't mandated in the Constitution the founders gave us, DON'T ACT!! If authority to act is mandated, act ONLY WITHIN THE STATED BOUNDS!!!
As painful as it might be, we must begin to pull the wooly rug out from under the welfare, grant, subsidy, SSI, aid, unemployment, disabled, government check recipient. More to the point, we must begin to pull the wooly blanket from off the eyes of America's entitlement class. We must unite the TEA Party and the OWS mob under one agenda to cram government back in it's limiting box under the authority of the Constitution via the Enumerated Powers Act. If we stop eating the youth, perhaps they'll stop threatening to eat the successful. If they'll stop marauding thuggery, perhaps we'll stop dismissing their voice. They are angry because they are without hope. You should be angry too, but your anger should be used to guide their anger, rather than making them the target of your anger. They didn't enter Marxism by choice. You sent them into the lion's den. You agree with Marx more than you know. They're your national progeny.
If you want a city, county or state to disallow drugs, alcohol, or tobacco - fine, do it at the local level and allow people to go where it is legal if they want it and illegal if they don't want to be near it. Between the lesser powers, they can experiment and find out the level of freedom the people are willing to live with or without. However, at the federal level, we have to stuff government back under the constraints of the Constitution. If OWS and the TEA party can agree on anything, it should be this much. If you wish to continue the moral wars via legislature, be prepared for a U.S.S.R. style black market and criminal underclass. Be prepared for their police state and be prepared for an Arab Spring style collapse because our spoiled butts are not willing to live under a morality mandate from the Right or the Left.
4 comments:
Just giving your site the once over. I have to say that I have been spending considerable time thinking about the legalization of drugs myself.
Your post is thoughtful and I loved the John Stossel/Ann Coulter clip.
Having suffered myself from the abuse of alcohol, on the part of someone else, I loathe the idea of putting some other child into the same position I occupied for a time. Yet, as an adult, I absolutely agree that it should be my choice what to put into my body.
I have spent a great deal of time trying to find a position that balances those two viewpoints and I cannot. If we still had shared values as a nation, and those, Christian values, I would be much easier in my mind about going with the freedom and personal responsibility view. Which tells me, if I am to be honest with myself, that I already know the answer. Freedom is not safe and it never has been.
I grow more and more admiring of Mr. Adams' quote: "We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." ~John Adams
Without the bridles of morality and religion, how would this work?
In any case, you've given me much food for thought. Thanks.
Mom; I so relate to the destructive nature of addiction. I've witnessed it in my brothers and I came very close to getting swallowed up in it myself. Two of my brothers found there way home from addiction, one has not. The one who hasn't come home has children and they asked me in a moment of rare openness, "Why don't my daddy love us?" My heart breaks for them. They're adults now, and their lives reflect their dad's absence. Nothing anyone else in the family could have done better than what we're doing. I fully understand the cost of drug abuse on our culture.
However, if drugs had never been illegal, they would never have taken hold of the culture as they have through the incredible profitability of black market trade. Pushers would be non-existent. Self preservation would be the national norm. Eventually, the culture will return to these natural states of being free people. Similarly, all behaviors in excess will drop away as people learn their personal and deadly consequence. It sounds so hard hearted, but the reality is nannying is worse. The consequences of caretaking induce rebellion. Rebellion welcomes folly and folly leads to the worst consequences of all.
I think that you are correct. There will always be those who do not do with their freedom as we would have them do, but that is not a sufficient justification to deny those freedoms to the rest.
Unfortunately, you are also correct in that there will be a time of excesses before the stabilization of society. All the more reason to share the grace of Christ with others while we have the opportunity.
I have linked to your article on my blog.
Thank you Mom. I value your opinion on this topic as one open to unpopular policy consideration.
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