I know it’s not very politically-correct to say this, but women should never be placed in combat positions in the military. Women, by their very design, are not as well-suited for battle conditions as men. This includes multiple aspects of their physical and mental design.
For example, the forearms of women have a deeper notch in the upper arm bone that makes their forearms more flexible. Because of this, women can move their arms further back than straight at the elbow. Men's arms do not reach 180 degrees, and this is a strength feature. A man will be able to lift more weight than a woman, even if their arm muscles were of the same mass, just because of this alone. But in addition to that, a man's bones are thicker and tougher than a woman's as well.
Of course, the idea of equal muscle mass is an illusion because the biology of men (including much higher levels of testosterone) means they can put on much more muscle mass than women and they lose it more slowly (meaning it's easier to stay in shape). When it comes to sheer strength, women simply cannot compete with men on a general basis. Some women are stronger than some men, of course, but men as a group have a much greater potential for strength than women. Few women have the ability to carry a grown man off the battlefield or to carry the large packs of supplies they need for a mission. They simply don't have the strength.
Women also have hips that are wider to allow for bearing children, but those same pelvic bones are less well designed for running fast, which can be important in evading enemy fire, keeping up with the pace of the group, or charging enemy lines.
Speaking of their pelvic region, women also have a genital area that is much more vulnerable to infection under dirty and primitive conditions often seen on the battlefield. A woman has a large surface area of moist mucous membrane in that region and a much shorter urethra, both of which make her far more vulnerable to infection that can travel easily to internal body regions and become serious or even life-threatening. The design of male genitalia makes men able to handle less sanitary conditions for longer periods without serious health risks.
Of course, women also have a monthly bleeding issue that makes hygiene and privacy more difficult without sanitary bathroom facilities. And not only do women need to keep that area especially clean at that particular time of the month, but even daily tasks like urination are more difficult for women. Having to squat makes women not only require different facilities and better sanitation for their elimination activities, but makes them more vulnerable during a surprise attack. A man surprised mid-stream is still on his feet, ready to run or charge. A woman...not so much.
Even the skin of women is less adapted for battle. Men have fewer blood vessels to the skin than women, which means that men bleed less from superficial wounds. Obviously, anyone can bleed to death if the wound is severe enough, but the lesser blood loss from superficial wounds means men are more likely to survive and keep fighting even after being wounded.
Men have a larger lung capacity than women, even at the same height and body mass. This gives them a greater ability to intake oxygen. Men also have a greater percentage of red blood cells in their blood, allowing them to transport more oxygen to their muscles when needed. These features give men greater endurance.
All of these individual features I have mentioned point out potential liabilities for single-cause injury or death. However, women also have less of an ability to stand up to the long-term physical strain of being in combat and are more likely than men to experience physical breakdown and require medical care for less quantifiable reasons.
In addition to the many physical reasons that women are less adapted to battle conditions, women are also less mentally prepared for the horrors of battle. Not only does the physical strain weigh more heavily on them and cause physical breakdown faster in women, but the same is true mentally. Women are more prone to mental issues like PTSD in the wake of battlefield stresses. The horrors of war will break down many men, but women are even more vulnerable to this side effect.
Women are designed to be nurturers. Men are designed to be warriors. Their physical and mental designs reflect this. Women have strengths that men do not have, but men also have strengths that women do not have. Being an effective soldier on the battlefield is not in keeping with a woman’s design.
Because women are not designed for battle, putting a woman into combat is a risk to both the woman herself and to the rest of her unit. Her physical and mental health will be more threatened by what she encounters than a man in the same situation. Thus, battle is more dangerous to her. But when any member of a unit is compromised in speed, endurance, strength, or mental fortitude or when they are injured or killed, it places a greater risk upon all of them as they try to make up for the lack and protect their fellow soldiers. Having a woman in the unit is a liability that simply wouldn’t exist if that woman were replaced with a man.
I've already identified many reasons from biology that women should not be in combat, but there are many other issues that could be put forth. I haven't even mentioned here the significant challenges involved in men and women sharing close quarters, the instinct of men to protect women even when it would not be advisable in a military context and the threat this poses to male soldiers, the very real risks of rape to women in the military (both from fellow soldiers and from the enemy if they were to be captured), the need for privacy, the sexual tension, the cost of separate sleeping and bathroom facilities, and many other relevant issues.
What it comes down to is that, if the military were just for show and didn't engage on the battlefield, it wouldn’t matter whether we had women in it. But if the military is a serious force designed to engage in battle efficiently and effectively, then for purely practical and ethical reasons alone, women should not be part of its combat forces.
Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
Sunday, January 17, 2016
Monday, November 9, 2015
How to Get a Degree without Drowning in Debt
The student loan system in this country is terrible. It's a
bad system that doesn't give most people a good return for their investment and
often traps them in crippling debt. It’s not designed to help students, but to
help the colleges have a steady stream of new students paying tuition, whether
or not they can afford it, and whether or not they receive a good return on
their investment. Don’t get sucked in to the student loan vortex.
If you want to go to college and get a good value for your money, you have to do these things. None of them are optional.
1) Study a subject that will get you a job. A majority of majors in the university will leave you unemployed and deep in debt too. Study STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math), not humanities, English, or social science. The latter fields are simply not worth the money to study at a university because they don’t yield good job prospects. Unless you are independently wealthy and have nothing better to do with your money, you’re better off to just study these things in your spare time by checking out books at your local library. Paying a college to teach them to you is not a good use of money.
2) Only go to college if you have reason to believe you are good enough at academics to finish your degree with a decent GPA. Unfortunately, many colleges are all too willing to accept unqualified applicants who can't do the work and will fail. If you don't finish the degree, you've wasted your time and money.
3) Make studying a priority during your college years. College is far too expensive to waste your time partying and acting like an adolescent. If you're going to pay for a college education, use it wisely and actually educate yourself. Make getting good grades, gaining knowledge, and making connections who will give you a good recommendation a priority.
4) Avoid student loans as much as possible. Instead, work as much as you can and apply for scholarships and grants. Go to a cheaper school, if necessary, or sit out a semester and work full time to earn the money. And if you do take out student loans, at least work part time so that you aren’t putting all your current living expenses into loans in addition to tuition.
5) Remember that the proper amount of student loans is zero and any non-zero amount must be justified by careful study and number-crunching to make sure it is worth it. Your future is at stake. In my experience, the only time student loans are an acceptable investment is when you’re going into a high paying field (think doctor, lawyer, or engineer), have very high graduation and employment potential (good grades and some work experience), and your realistic (not idealistic) future income will be sufficient to pay for your total student loans in less than 10 years while also allowing you to cover all your living expenses. You have to crunch the numbers and make sure the investment, including the interest you will pay, is worth it in better job prospects and pay than you could achieve without the degree. You can’t rely on the system to check this for you. They are all too happy to mortgage your future for a degree you can’t afford and that won’t get you a job.
For more on this topic, check out this excellent video from Prager University on the subject of student loans and how they are bad for students.
If you want to go to college and get a good value for your money, you have to do these things. None of them are optional.
1) Study a subject that will get you a job. A majority of majors in the university will leave you unemployed and deep in debt too. Study STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math), not humanities, English, or social science. The latter fields are simply not worth the money to study at a university because they don’t yield good job prospects. Unless you are independently wealthy and have nothing better to do with your money, you’re better off to just study these things in your spare time by checking out books at your local library. Paying a college to teach them to you is not a good use of money.
2) Only go to college if you have reason to believe you are good enough at academics to finish your degree with a decent GPA. Unfortunately, many colleges are all too willing to accept unqualified applicants who can't do the work and will fail. If you don't finish the degree, you've wasted your time and money.
3) Make studying a priority during your college years. College is far too expensive to waste your time partying and acting like an adolescent. If you're going to pay for a college education, use it wisely and actually educate yourself. Make getting good grades, gaining knowledge, and making connections who will give you a good recommendation a priority.
4) Avoid student loans as much as possible. Instead, work as much as you can and apply for scholarships and grants. Go to a cheaper school, if necessary, or sit out a semester and work full time to earn the money. And if you do take out student loans, at least work part time so that you aren’t putting all your current living expenses into loans in addition to tuition.
5) Remember that the proper amount of student loans is zero and any non-zero amount must be justified by careful study and number-crunching to make sure it is worth it. Your future is at stake. In my experience, the only time student loans are an acceptable investment is when you’re going into a high paying field (think doctor, lawyer, or engineer), have very high graduation and employment potential (good grades and some work experience), and your realistic (not idealistic) future income will be sufficient to pay for your total student loans in less than 10 years while also allowing you to cover all your living expenses. You have to crunch the numbers and make sure the investment, including the interest you will pay, is worth it in better job prospects and pay than you could achieve without the degree. You can’t rely on the system to check this for you. They are all too happy to mortgage your future for a degree you can’t afford and that won’t get you a job.
For more on this topic, check out this excellent video from Prager University on the subject of student loans and how they are bad for students.
It is possible to go to college and get a degree that will prepare you for a
job and to do it without drowning yourself in debt. I did it. I graduated with
a Master's degree in Biology, with a 4.0 GPA throughout, with no debt, and got a job right out of college. But I’m
the exception. You can’t just do what everyone else is doing and expect things
to work out well for you. You have to be smart and informed or you’re likely to
end up an unhappy statistic, paying down enormous debt on a degree you never
use.
Friday, September 4, 2015
Here's What's Wrong with the Kim Davis Incarceration
There are so many things wrong with the Kim Davis incarceration that it is mind-boggling.
1) There shouldn't have been a Supreme Court ruling for same-sex marriage in the first place because the Constitution simply does not say anything at all about marriage. The 5 justices in the majority opinion just made it up because they wanted it to be true. Everybody knows that, including the leftists.
2) Just because 5 justices on the Supreme Court say something is Constitutional doesn't make it Constitutional. We all need to get away from the idea that they are the final authority on what is and is not Constitutional. The Founding Fathers would be ashamed of us.
Here is what Thomas Jefferson had to say about the matter:
3) Even if marriage were a matter that mankind could decide for themselves (instead of a God-ordained institution), the Supreme Court has no jurisdiction to decide marriage policy for the states since that power has never been granted to the federal government. The Constitution clearly states that all powers not granted specifically to the federal government are held by the states or by the people. The people grant government its power. The real power lies with the people. And until the people formally and specifically grant a power to the federal government, the federal government has no power in that area. This is definitely the case with marriage. The federal government has never been granted the power to define marriage by the people and thus it has no jurisdiction. For the federal government to try to seize that power by judicial fiat is unconstitutional and tyrannical.
4) Because the Supreme Court cannot legislate, no ruling of theirs is a law. Thus, Kim Davis has broken no law by refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. On the contrary, she has upheld the actual law, which in her case is the Constitution of Kentucky, which defines marriage as the union of a man and woman. Even the people who agree with Kim are saying she broke the law for good reason. Pay attention, people. She didn't break any laws. She followed the law. It's all the other county clerks in the state who are not following the law out of a misguided belief that the Supreme Court has the right to make law and to dictate to the states what they will do in a matter on which the federal government has no jurisdiction.
5) So, for the reasons above, Kim Davis should be lauded as the one person actually following the law. She certainly shouldn't be punished in any way. But even if she were failing in her duties as a public servant, putting her in jail is not the proper response. The proper response is to impeach her. She is an elected official, and when elected officials fail to uphold their duties, the people should impeach them or vote them out. It's not like she broke some actual law by stealing or murdering that has written law against it that defines the penalty for the crime. So by what statute is she being placed in jail? None whatsoever. Her only "crime" if there was one, was in being bad at her job and that is something that would properly be corrected (if there were a flaw) by removing her from office. There is no basis whatsoever for imprisoning her.
6) Even if Kim Davis had broken a law and was rightfully imprisoned, there is absolutely no reason to deny her bail. She's not accused of any kind of violence. And even suspected murderers and rapists get out on bail. It's not like she's so wealthy or well-connected that they fear she's a flight risk and will go somewhere she can't be extradited. So there's no reason whatsoever to deny bail. It's pure animus. It's persecution of one society sees as unworthy of equal rights solely for her unpopular views.
The points above are just some of the more blatant problems with the case. If any one of the items above had been properly understood and properly handled, this wouldn't be happening. The fact that it is happening is evidence that we have greatly lost our way as a country, that we the people are not holding government properly accountable, that most people do not understand the basis for just government, and that we have allowed persecution of an individual and violation of her rights because her views and actions are not politically-correct. May God have mercy on us. And may the people learn from this case, rise up, and never let it happen again.
1) There shouldn't have been a Supreme Court ruling for same-sex marriage in the first place because the Constitution simply does not say anything at all about marriage. The 5 justices in the majority opinion just made it up because they wanted it to be true. Everybody knows that, including the leftists.
2) Just because 5 justices on the Supreme Court say something is Constitutional doesn't make it Constitutional. We all need to get away from the idea that they are the final authority on what is and is not Constitutional. The Founding Fathers would be ashamed of us.
Here is what Thomas Jefferson had to say about the matter:
"You seem to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps....
Their power [is] the more dangerous as they are in office for life, and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves."
3) Even if marriage were a matter that mankind could decide for themselves (instead of a God-ordained institution), the Supreme Court has no jurisdiction to decide marriage policy for the states since that power has never been granted to the federal government. The Constitution clearly states that all powers not granted specifically to the federal government are held by the states or by the people. The people grant government its power. The real power lies with the people. And until the people formally and specifically grant a power to the federal government, the federal government has no power in that area. This is definitely the case with marriage. The federal government has never been granted the power to define marriage by the people and thus it has no jurisdiction. For the federal government to try to seize that power by judicial fiat is unconstitutional and tyrannical.
4) Because the Supreme Court cannot legislate, no ruling of theirs is a law. Thus, Kim Davis has broken no law by refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. On the contrary, she has upheld the actual law, which in her case is the Constitution of Kentucky, which defines marriage as the union of a man and woman. Even the people who agree with Kim are saying she broke the law for good reason. Pay attention, people. She didn't break any laws. She followed the law. It's all the other county clerks in the state who are not following the law out of a misguided belief that the Supreme Court has the right to make law and to dictate to the states what they will do in a matter on which the federal government has no jurisdiction.
5) So, for the reasons above, Kim Davis should be lauded as the one person actually following the law. She certainly shouldn't be punished in any way. But even if she were failing in her duties as a public servant, putting her in jail is not the proper response. The proper response is to impeach her. She is an elected official, and when elected officials fail to uphold their duties, the people should impeach them or vote them out. It's not like she broke some actual law by stealing or murdering that has written law against it that defines the penalty for the crime. So by what statute is she being placed in jail? None whatsoever. Her only "crime" if there was one, was in being bad at her job and that is something that would properly be corrected (if there were a flaw) by removing her from office. There is no basis whatsoever for imprisoning her.
6) Even if Kim Davis had broken a law and was rightfully imprisoned, there is absolutely no reason to deny her bail. She's not accused of any kind of violence. And even suspected murderers and rapists get out on bail. It's not like she's so wealthy or well-connected that they fear she's a flight risk and will go somewhere she can't be extradited. So there's no reason whatsoever to deny bail. It's pure animus. It's persecution of one society sees as unworthy of equal rights solely for her unpopular views.
The points above are just some of the more blatant problems with the case. If any one of the items above had been properly understood and properly handled, this wouldn't be happening. The fact that it is happening is evidence that we have greatly lost our way as a country, that we the people are not holding government properly accountable, that most people do not understand the basis for just government, and that we have allowed persecution of an individual and violation of her rights because her views and actions are not politically-correct. May God have mercy on us. And may the people learn from this case, rise up, and never let it happen again.
Monday, August 10, 2015
For the Trump Supporters
For those defending Trump, I fully realize that the gender card is overplayed and I hate that so many people use the "war on women" nonsense to criticize pro-lifers and republicans. I'm opposed to political correctness. I'm opposed to apologizing every time someone gets offended. I'm opposed to the cowardly and shameful use of slogans and euphemisms instead of articulate, factual arguments that is so prevalent among liberals and even many supposed conservatives. I'm sick of it too. Boy, am I sick of it!
However, there are people who do actually show real disrespect toward others, who run roughshod over everyone who disagrees with them, who are crass and rude and vulgar, who are self-serving and self-absorbed. We used to call people like this boors. It's a useful word. It ought not to be used where it doesn't fit and it ought not to be used against people we merely disagree with. However, there are times when it does actually fit. Donald Trump is a prime example.
In our distaste for political correctness and spin and tiptoeing around the issues, let's not go to the other extreme of accepting and applauding boorish behavior. In our search for truth and honesty, let us not excuse those who "speak their minds" in a hurtful and demeaning way that is simply not necessary or praiseworthy. It is quite possible to speak truth with kindness and tact and boldness too. Let's support people who do that, even if they don't get quite as much of the spotlight for doing it.
Of course, all that assumes that Donald Trump IS speaking truth. That is true in a couple cases. However, more often it is not. Trump has taken just about every position there is at some point in time, so he's bound to have said a couple things that were correct once or twice. Let's not get too excited that someone who changes positions so frequently actually hit on the right answer a couple of times. That's not really such an accomplishment. Guessing will get you a few right answers, but it doesn't mean you'll pass the test. And when it comes to showing consistency, integrity, and an understanding of conservative principles, Trump fails miserably.
So don't fall for the hype and the hair and the showboating. Don't pick a candidate on style over substance, as the Obama voters did. Evaluate candidates on their proven record, their consistency, and their principles, not on their ability to sling insults and not back down. It's better for our country and our children if you pick a candidate with your brain and not your emotions.
Saturday, April 25, 2015
Why Government Should Protect Traditional Marriage
The problem with the same-sex marriage debate is that nobody (or almost nobody) is making the right argument.
______________________________________________________________________________
On one side of the issue we have those who advocate for same-sex marriage, claiming that heterosexuals have the right to marry whoever they want and homosexuals should be allowed that also, out of fairness. On the other side you have people saying that homosexuality is a sin and thus should not be allowed. Both sides are making flawed arguments.
The problem with claiming that homosexuality is a sin is that whether or not it is a sin is irrelevant to making law. We live in a secular country, not a theocracy, and we don’t make everything that is wrong illegal – nor should we. Coveting, lust, and not remembering the Sabbath are sins, but I think we all agree that making and enforcing laws against these things would be bad.
In this country, laws are based on the concept of inalienable rights (also known as human rights or natural rights) – rights that all people have by virtue of being human and which government cannot grant or take away. These principles of inalienable rights are consistent with Christianity, but can stand alone as a justification that all people can agree with. What’s more, they offer an objective means of determining how government should be involved in making law about various issues.
Before we get into the arguments about same-sex marriage, we need to understand how government handles different behaviors and why. There are only 3 ways that government can treat behaviors. It can prohibit them, permit them, or promote them.
Because the highest purpose of government is the protection of inalienable rights, government should NOT prohibit behaviors that the people have an inalienable right to engage in. For example, we have the inalienable right to bear arms and thus government should not prohibit gun ownership. Government prohibition of something the people have a right to do creates an unjust law that itself violates inalienable rights.
On the other hand, government SHOULD prohibit behaviors that violate the rights of others. So, for instance, government must make murder and theft illegal because these behaviors violate inalienable rights. Any violation of inalienable rights should be prohibited by law in order to protect those rights.
However, there are many behaviors that are not a direct violation of inalienable rights. In such cases, government's main purpose (its secondary purpose, if you will) is the good of society. Thus, behaviors which are definitely bad for society should be prohibited while behaviors which are definitely good for society should be promoted. For example, driving very fast in a car may not always violate the inalienable rights of others (it only does if you hurt them or their property), but it is bad for society for people to be driving recklessly, so driving too fast is prohibited. On the other hand, government promotes giving to charity by providing tax incentives for doing so. Of course, it is necessary for the people to consent to any laws that limit their freedom through their representatives in government. But these are good laws that the people can pass on themselves for the good of society as long as the laws do not violate anyone's inalienable rights.
The default government position for behaviors is to simply permit them. Before a behavior can be prohibited, it is necessary to prove one of two things. You either have to prove that the behavior violates someone's rights OR you have to prove that it is bad for society and that prohibiting it does not violate anyone's rights. You can't just decide to prohibit something for no good reason or you violate the right to liberty.
Similarly, before you can promote a behavior you must prove that it is good for society and that it does not violate anyone's rights. You can't just go around promoting behaviors without good reason or you are not protecting the interests of society as a whole.
So that's the background. The question is, what is government's role with regard to different kinds of human relationships? Which behaviors should be prohibited? Which should be promoted? Which should be simply permitted?
Certainly some types of sexual relationships should be prohibited. Pedophilia, for example, is prohibited because it is harmful to children (and therefore society) and because it violates the inalienable rights of children (who cannot consent to sex).
Traditional marriage between a man and a woman has been promoted by government since the beginning because it is good for society. A traditional marriage is procreative, producing the next generation of citizens, and also forms a stable environment in which to raise those children, making them more likely to be good and responsible citizens. Thus, stable marriages are in society's best interest and government promotes this ideal by recognizing and protecting the marriage relationship and by providing economic incentives (such as tax breaks) to encourage people to marry and raise children in stable homes. It's an investment in the future.
In addition to producing the next generation, marriage forms both an economic and a social unit and provides benefits to society in this way as well. Economically, marriage is a wealth-building institution. Married people make more and save more than singles and children of married couples are far less likely to be poor. Socially, marriage is good for all parties – men, women, and children. Married men live longer and are happier and healthier than unmarried men. Women who are married and children who live with their married parents are far less likely to be abused. Children of married couples are more likely to do well in school. These are just a few of the many advantages of marriage to the individuals and to society as a whole.
By contrast, homosexual relationships do not provide these benefits to society. No logical conservative is advocating that we prohibit same-sex relationships between consenting adults. We don't cart people off to jail for engaging in consensual homosexual acts, nor do we want to. However, because same-sex relationships have not been shown to be a good for society, the proper role of government with respect to same-sex relationships is to simply permit them. Until same-sex relationships can be shown to have the same benefits to society as traditional marriage, we should not promote them.
Of course, some claim that same-sex couples have a right to marry. The problem with this claim is that there is no such right to marry whoever one wants. If there was such a right, then it would apply to many more than just homosexuals. Pedophiles who want to marry young children, zoophiles who want to marry animals, those who wish to marry close relatives, and those who want to marry multiple people would all have a “right” to do so if there is a right to marry whoever one wishes. I think we all agree that this is not the case. Civilization has always placed restrictions on marriage and it always will. The only question is what the proper restrictions are.
The thing is, marriage means much more than just two people that love each other or who want to commit to one another. Marriage is a natural unit based on the biology of human reproduction and, most importantly, the needs of children for care and stability. Only a union of a man and a woman can produce children naturally. Every child has just one biological mother and one biological father. And since both parents have equal responsibility for their child’s care, it is only natural that parents would form permanent unions in order to share that care and provide the stable home the child needs. Thus, every society on earth has figured out how to have marriages as individuals form a marriage relationship with another person of the opposite sex in order to raise a family together. There are lots of kinds of sexual relationships (committed or not), but only the permanent, exclusive, and comprehensive union of a man and woman produces a natural family unit.
Because the natural family is a natural unit, it has natural rights and responsibilities of its own that government should recognize in order to protect those rights. One of those rights, for example, is the right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children. If there is no such thing as a natural family with its own natural rights, then there is no such thing as parental rights. In such a case, every man, woman, and child is an individual ward of the state and has no natural family ties. This would also mean that parents bring up their children only by permission of government, which may be revoked at any time. In a society that is increasingly denying the existence of the natural family, it is no wonder that parental rights are also under attack.
One of the responsibilities of the natural family is that parents care for their children, providing food, shelter, love, and education. One of the advantages of this arrangement is that both the mother and the father bring different strengths to the parenting table which are both needed by the child. When one is missing, the child will be disadvantaged.
In addition to these profound reasons that marriage between a man and a woman is important to promote, there is the extremely important issue of children’s rights. One of the rights of children is to be cared for by their parents. Every child deserves to know and live with their biological mother and father. They also deserve to know where they came from and have a sense of their family history. Obviously, in an imperfect world, this doesn’t always happen, but it is an ideal worth holding up and encouraging in our society. That is why promoting traditional marriage is important in order to help as many children as possible to have this ideal in their lives.
But not only does a same-sex “marriage” not provide this ideal to a child, it actively undermines this ideal by encoding in law that children have no right to both of their parents and that children don’t need both a mother and a father. Thus, not only are children raised in same-sex household purposely deprived of either a mother or a father, but they are being told by the law and by society that they aren’t lacking anything - they have two parents, after all, and there is nothing about those parents’ genders that matters to their upbringing. But this is quite untrue. Children need and deserve both their mother and their father. Thus, same-sex marriage denies children their rightful parents inherently, as part of the design, not merely as a response to unavoidable circumstances as adoption does. And thus elevating same-sex relationships to the status of marriage unavoidably violates the rights of children and should not be made law.
In conclusion, it is because of the many benefits of traditional marriage to society as well as its intrinsic natural rights that government protects and encourages marriage. Same-sex relationships do not have the same status as marriage because they are intrinsically different relationships. Homosexual relationships are not a natural unit and can produce no children. They thus have no claim to the natural rights that marriage has. Since same-sex unions have not been shown to provide the benefits to society that marriage does, they are not and should not be encouraged the way marriage is.
Most importantly, in order to protect the rights of children to their mother and father, we must not pretend that same-sex relationships are marriages. We must not encode a vision of the family in our laws that denies children one of their parents as an inherent part of the design. We must uphold the ideal of a married mother and father for every child.
______________________________________________________________________________
On one side of the issue we have those who advocate for same-sex marriage, claiming that heterosexuals have the right to marry whoever they want and homosexuals should be allowed that also, out of fairness. On the other side you have people saying that homosexuality is a sin and thus should not be allowed. Both sides are making flawed arguments.
The problem with claiming that homosexuality is a sin is that whether or not it is a sin is irrelevant to making law. We live in a secular country, not a theocracy, and we don’t make everything that is wrong illegal – nor should we. Coveting, lust, and not remembering the Sabbath are sins, but I think we all agree that making and enforcing laws against these things would be bad.
In this country, laws are based on the concept of inalienable rights (also known as human rights or natural rights) – rights that all people have by virtue of being human and which government cannot grant or take away. These principles of inalienable rights are consistent with Christianity, but can stand alone as a justification that all people can agree with. What’s more, they offer an objective means of determining how government should be involved in making law about various issues.
Before we get into the arguments about same-sex marriage, we need to understand how government handles different behaviors and why. There are only 3 ways that government can treat behaviors. It can prohibit them, permit them, or promote them.
Because the highest purpose of government is the protection of inalienable rights, government should NOT prohibit behaviors that the people have an inalienable right to engage in. For example, we have the inalienable right to bear arms and thus government should not prohibit gun ownership. Government prohibition of something the people have a right to do creates an unjust law that itself violates inalienable rights.
On the other hand, government SHOULD prohibit behaviors that violate the rights of others. So, for instance, government must make murder and theft illegal because these behaviors violate inalienable rights. Any violation of inalienable rights should be prohibited by law in order to protect those rights.
However, there are many behaviors that are not a direct violation of inalienable rights. In such cases, government's main purpose (its secondary purpose, if you will) is the good of society. Thus, behaviors which are definitely bad for society should be prohibited while behaviors which are definitely good for society should be promoted. For example, driving very fast in a car may not always violate the inalienable rights of others (it only does if you hurt them or their property), but it is bad for society for people to be driving recklessly, so driving too fast is prohibited. On the other hand, government promotes giving to charity by providing tax incentives for doing so. Of course, it is necessary for the people to consent to any laws that limit their freedom through their representatives in government. But these are good laws that the people can pass on themselves for the good of society as long as the laws do not violate anyone's inalienable rights.
The default government position for behaviors is to simply permit them. Before a behavior can be prohibited, it is necessary to prove one of two things. You either have to prove that the behavior violates someone's rights OR you have to prove that it is bad for society and that prohibiting it does not violate anyone's rights. You can't just decide to prohibit something for no good reason or you violate the right to liberty.
Similarly, before you can promote a behavior you must prove that it is good for society and that it does not violate anyone's rights. You can't just go around promoting behaviors without good reason or you are not protecting the interests of society as a whole.
So that's the background. The question is, what is government's role with regard to different kinds of human relationships? Which behaviors should be prohibited? Which should be promoted? Which should be simply permitted?
Certainly some types of sexual relationships should be prohibited. Pedophilia, for example, is prohibited because it is harmful to children (and therefore society) and because it violates the inalienable rights of children (who cannot consent to sex).
Traditional marriage between a man and a woman has been promoted by government since the beginning because it is good for society. A traditional marriage is procreative, producing the next generation of citizens, and also forms a stable environment in which to raise those children, making them more likely to be good and responsible citizens. Thus, stable marriages are in society's best interest and government promotes this ideal by recognizing and protecting the marriage relationship and by providing economic incentives (such as tax breaks) to encourage people to marry and raise children in stable homes. It's an investment in the future.
In addition to producing the next generation, marriage forms both an economic and a social unit and provides benefits to society in this way as well. Economically, marriage is a wealth-building institution. Married people make more and save more than singles and children of married couples are far less likely to be poor. Socially, marriage is good for all parties – men, women, and children. Married men live longer and are happier and healthier than unmarried men. Women who are married and children who live with their married parents are far less likely to be abused. Children of married couples are more likely to do well in school. These are just a few of the many advantages of marriage to the individuals and to society as a whole.
By contrast, homosexual relationships do not provide these benefits to society. No logical conservative is advocating that we prohibit same-sex relationships between consenting adults. We don't cart people off to jail for engaging in consensual homosexual acts, nor do we want to. However, because same-sex relationships have not been shown to be a good for society, the proper role of government with respect to same-sex relationships is to simply permit them. Until same-sex relationships can be shown to have the same benefits to society as traditional marriage, we should not promote them.
Of course, some claim that same-sex couples have a right to marry. The problem with this claim is that there is no such right to marry whoever one wants. If there was such a right, then it would apply to many more than just homosexuals. Pedophiles who want to marry young children, zoophiles who want to marry animals, those who wish to marry close relatives, and those who want to marry multiple people would all have a “right” to do so if there is a right to marry whoever one wishes. I think we all agree that this is not the case. Civilization has always placed restrictions on marriage and it always will. The only question is what the proper restrictions are.
The thing is, marriage means much more than just two people that love each other or who want to commit to one another. Marriage is a natural unit based on the biology of human reproduction and, most importantly, the needs of children for care and stability. Only a union of a man and a woman can produce children naturally. Every child has just one biological mother and one biological father. And since both parents have equal responsibility for their child’s care, it is only natural that parents would form permanent unions in order to share that care and provide the stable home the child needs. Thus, every society on earth has figured out how to have marriages as individuals form a marriage relationship with another person of the opposite sex in order to raise a family together. There are lots of kinds of sexual relationships (committed or not), but only the permanent, exclusive, and comprehensive union of a man and woman produces a natural family unit.
Because the natural family is a natural unit, it has natural rights and responsibilities of its own that government should recognize in order to protect those rights. One of those rights, for example, is the right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children. If there is no such thing as a natural family with its own natural rights, then there is no such thing as parental rights. In such a case, every man, woman, and child is an individual ward of the state and has no natural family ties. This would also mean that parents bring up their children only by permission of government, which may be revoked at any time. In a society that is increasingly denying the existence of the natural family, it is no wonder that parental rights are also under attack.
One of the responsibilities of the natural family is that parents care for their children, providing food, shelter, love, and education. One of the advantages of this arrangement is that both the mother and the father bring different strengths to the parenting table which are both needed by the child. When one is missing, the child will be disadvantaged.
In addition to these profound reasons that marriage between a man and a woman is important to promote, there is the extremely important issue of children’s rights. One of the rights of children is to be cared for by their parents. Every child deserves to know and live with their biological mother and father. They also deserve to know where they came from and have a sense of their family history. Obviously, in an imperfect world, this doesn’t always happen, but it is an ideal worth holding up and encouraging in our society. That is why promoting traditional marriage is important in order to help as many children as possible to have this ideal in their lives.
But not only does a same-sex “marriage” not provide this ideal to a child, it actively undermines this ideal by encoding in law that children have no right to both of their parents and that children don’t need both a mother and a father. Thus, not only are children raised in same-sex household purposely deprived of either a mother or a father, but they are being told by the law and by society that they aren’t lacking anything - they have two parents, after all, and there is nothing about those parents’ genders that matters to their upbringing. But this is quite untrue. Children need and deserve both their mother and their father. Thus, same-sex marriage denies children their rightful parents inherently, as part of the design, not merely as a response to unavoidable circumstances as adoption does. And thus elevating same-sex relationships to the status of marriage unavoidably violates the rights of children and should not be made law.
In conclusion, it is because of the many benefits of traditional marriage to society as well as its intrinsic natural rights that government protects and encourages marriage. Same-sex relationships do not have the same status as marriage because they are intrinsically different relationships. Homosexual relationships are not a natural unit and can produce no children. They thus have no claim to the natural rights that marriage has. Since same-sex unions have not been shown to provide the benefits to society that marriage does, they are not and should not be encouraged the way marriage is.
Most importantly, in order to protect the rights of children to their mother and father, we must not pretend that same-sex relationships are marriages. We must not encode a vision of the family in our laws that denies children one of their parents as an inherent part of the design. We must uphold the ideal of a married mother and father for every child.
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
Women’s Rights, Gay Rights, and the Problem of Liberal Rhetoric
Many people don't notice this, but liberals always speak of
people by the group they belong to - African Americans, gays, whites,
Hispanics, women, poor people, etc. They talk about the rights of people as a function of
belonging to a group - gay rights, women's rights, etc. They don't speak of
people as just people in general. The liberals are not color blind. Far from
it. They are keenly aware of race and gender and other group statuses because they
are the ones promoting separate factions and pitting groups against each other
for their own ends. If you don't believe me, just listen to them sometime. They can hardly talk about anything without making it all about special groups. And in the irony of ironies, they have somehow managed to
convince a lot of people that it's the conservatives who are racist and sexist.
Liberals don't really care about gays or women or children or poor people. They just want votes and to be thought inclusive and tolerant. It's all part of their image. But they don't actually want to help anyone or stop hatred. In fact, they're very good at promoting hatred (especially against Christianity and conservatism) and drumming it up where it doesn't exist. They survive on the hatred and misunderstanding between groups. They want the country splintered into different groups that all have grudges against each other. That way, they can pretend to commiserate with all the separate groups and promise them help in exchange for votes and money. They need people to be riled up and upset so that they can swoop down with their promises of change and trade people a "government solution" in exchange for their freedom.
How do we know liberals don’t really want to help? Because they don’t actually help. Liberal policies don’t produce good results. They don’t cure poverty or stop racism or protect rights. Their policies are carefully crafted to look good on the surface, but not stop the evils of society, because it is the existence of those evils that keeps everyone coming back to liberals for “solutions.” To cover this failure of their policies, liberals are very good at turning the conversation away from the actual results of their policies and talking instead about all their good motives.
On the other hand, the conservative emphasis on freedom and personal responsibility and equal rights for all does help reduce poverty and racism and treats people as equals, but without taking freedom or money away from one group to give it to another. Conservatives don’t have to whine and pander to special interest groups and tell them all how terrible they have it to get votes. So we have no interest in keeping people down or making them hate one another. We want people prosperous and free, not dependent on us. A healthy, free, and productive society is better for everyone. A society of separate factions that hate each other is bad for everyone – except liberal politicians.
Conservatives, unlike liberals, see people as just people. We realize they belong to different groups, but conservatives see the humanity of other people first. We recognize our similarities as being more important than our differences. And so the idea of special gay rights or women's rights or minority rights are a foreign concept to us. All human beings have the same rights by virtue of being human. Rights don't come from group membership. There are no special rights that some groups have and others don't. We conservatives aren't for gay rights or women's rights or any other special rights based on group status, but not because we're against gays or women or blacks or any group (as liberals like to claim). We're against these special rights precisely because we see all people as being inherently equal. There are only human rights, and all humans have them.
Liberals don't really care about gays or women or children or poor people. They just want votes and to be thought inclusive and tolerant. It's all part of their image. But they don't actually want to help anyone or stop hatred. In fact, they're very good at promoting hatred (especially against Christianity and conservatism) and drumming it up where it doesn't exist. They survive on the hatred and misunderstanding between groups. They want the country splintered into different groups that all have grudges against each other. That way, they can pretend to commiserate with all the separate groups and promise them help in exchange for votes and money. They need people to be riled up and upset so that they can swoop down with their promises of change and trade people a "government solution" in exchange for their freedom.
How do we know liberals don’t really want to help? Because they don’t actually help. Liberal policies don’t produce good results. They don’t cure poverty or stop racism or protect rights. Their policies are carefully crafted to look good on the surface, but not stop the evils of society, because it is the existence of those evils that keeps everyone coming back to liberals for “solutions.” To cover this failure of their policies, liberals are very good at turning the conversation away from the actual results of their policies and talking instead about all their good motives.
On the other hand, the conservative emphasis on freedom and personal responsibility and equal rights for all does help reduce poverty and racism and treats people as equals, but without taking freedom or money away from one group to give it to another. Conservatives don’t have to whine and pander to special interest groups and tell them all how terrible they have it to get votes. So we have no interest in keeping people down or making them hate one another. We want people prosperous and free, not dependent on us. A healthy, free, and productive society is better for everyone. A society of separate factions that hate each other is bad for everyone – except liberal politicians.
Conservatives, unlike liberals, see people as just people. We realize they belong to different groups, but conservatives see the humanity of other people first. We recognize our similarities as being more important than our differences. And so the idea of special gay rights or women's rights or minority rights are a foreign concept to us. All human beings have the same rights by virtue of being human. Rights don't come from group membership. There are no special rights that some groups have and others don't. We conservatives aren't for gay rights or women's rights or any other special rights based on group status, but not because we're against gays or women or blacks or any group (as liberals like to claim). We're against these special rights precisely because we see all people as being inherently equal. There are only human rights, and all humans have them.
Monday, August 25, 2014
Need-Based vs. Value-Based Wages
I hear a lot of people advocating for a raise in the minimum wage (usually to $10 or $15 per hour) so that people can "make a living wage." Here is my response to that.
If you think we need a higher minimum wage to ensure that we take care of everyone's needs, you are advocating for wages to be paid based on need, not the value of their work. That sounds nice, but there are some serious problems with that view. For one, it's unfair. (Yes, I just used the code word of the liberals in favor of my conservative viewpoint. I love turning the tables like that.) Paying wages based on need is inherently and unavoidably unfair.
Let's use an example of two men doing exactly the same job at the same company. One is a married man with 3 children. The other is single with no children. Should the company pay the married man more than the single man, even though they do exactly the same work?
If you believe that people should be paid based on their need rather than the value of their work, then you must say that the married man should receive more pay for his work because his need is greater. Yet very few would agree that a married man should be paid more for the same work. We instinctively realize that it is unfair and unjust to pay two people differently for the same work.
Let’s go a bit further. If people should be paid based on their needs, then why not do away with a set wage altogether? Instead, employers should simply meet all the needs of all their employees in exchange for work. So, if an employee’s car breaks down, rather than pay for the repairs himself, he would turn in the bill to his employer. Likewise, all food bills, rent statements, utility bills, hospital bills, and all receipts for any need are paid or reimbursed by the employer in exchange for working at the company. That way, we can ensure that everyone can live on what they make. Of course, that also means that many employees will make much more than other people doing similar work. It also means that employees become, not masters of their own destiny, but more akin to slaves – being fed, housed, and clothed in exchange for working for the master. Is this what we want? It is if we think that wages should be based on need.
Instead of basing wages on need, a much better way is to base wages on the value of the work being done. In this view, a person who provides more value to the company should receive more pay while someone whose skills are less valuable receives less pay. This seems heartless on first glance, but actually has several advantages to both the company AND the worker.
The advantage to the company is obvious. Basing wages on the value of the work produces incentive for employees to do better quality work in order to receive better compensation. Plus, the burden of deciding what constitutes actual needs (as opposed to wants) is removed and the overhead involved in doling out welfare to all employees is gone. No one debates that paying for the value of the work is better for companies.
What many don’t realize is that a system where wages are based on the value of the work is actually better for employees.
For one thing, when compensation is based on need, it is nearly impossible to have anything more than the most basic needs met. No matter how hard you work in such a need-based system, you can’t get any more. The employer is only obligated to provide for your needs. If you want nicer things, you’re out of luck. No amount of harder work, increased skill, or better efficiency will get you more than the basics you need to survive.
What’s more, you can work your hardest and still get less than someone who doesn’t put in much effort, but has more need. This is tremendously disincentivizing and demoralizing. How can anyone have pride in their work when it doesn’t matter how hard they work? They will still get the same compensation as if they had barely done the minimum. And how depressing would it be to work very hard and have the guy at the next desk, who does practically nothing, getting the same or better than you. It’s simply not fair or right to pay different amounts for the same work or give the same pay for different amounts of work.
In a system where wages are based on the value of the work, a person can get ahead by working harder, developing new skills, or becoming more efficient. Their future is in their own hands. That is empowering. That gives people hope. It gives them reason to produce something of value that is useful to society because it is also useful to themselves personally.
Paying for the value of work rather than need gives people the opportunity to better themselves. It gives them incentive to do better and to have hope because they are masters of their own destiny, not slaves to a system.
A value-based system of wages is not only better for businesses and workers, but it is better for society as a whole. A society where everyone works to better themselves in order to provide more value, and thus earn a better wage, is a prosperous and thriving society. New inventions are made, new services offered, new businesses opened, new technology developed – all for the purpose of allowing individuals to better their lot in life. There is no incentive for developing these things in a need-based system. There is far more total production when everyone is working to provide more value in order to get more for themselves.
A system where people are paid based on need has no hope or future. A system where people are paid based on the value of their work is empowering to individuals and allows them to better themselves, provide for themselves and their families, and make their society more productive.
So, should we pay wages based on need or on the value of a person’s work? We can't have both.
If wages should be value-based, then we shouldn’t raise the minimum wage. We should allow individuals to be paid based on the value of their work. Those wishing to earn more must either work more hours or increase their skills. But they have that opportunity to decide for themselves and control their own destiny.
On the other hand, raising the minimum wage to a “living wage” simply means that those not providing enough value to be worth that minimum wage will have no jobs. It means cutting off hope for those of low skills who cannot make it into the job market. It means keeping a permanent underclass who have been priced out of jobs. It might sound compassionate to want to pay everyone enough to live on, but the results actually hurt those with poor job skills. And that isn’t good for anyone.
If you think we need a higher minimum wage to ensure that we take care of everyone's needs, you are advocating for wages to be paid based on need, not the value of their work. That sounds nice, but there are some serious problems with that view. For one, it's unfair. (Yes, I just used the code word of the liberals in favor of my conservative viewpoint. I love turning the tables like that.) Paying wages based on need is inherently and unavoidably unfair.
Let's use an example of two men doing exactly the same job at the same company. One is a married man with 3 children. The other is single with no children. Should the company pay the married man more than the single man, even though they do exactly the same work?
If you believe that people should be paid based on their need rather than the value of their work, then you must say that the married man should receive more pay for his work because his need is greater. Yet very few would agree that a married man should be paid more for the same work. We instinctively realize that it is unfair and unjust to pay two people differently for the same work.
Let’s go a bit further. If people should be paid based on their needs, then why not do away with a set wage altogether? Instead, employers should simply meet all the needs of all their employees in exchange for work. So, if an employee’s car breaks down, rather than pay for the repairs himself, he would turn in the bill to his employer. Likewise, all food bills, rent statements, utility bills, hospital bills, and all receipts for any need are paid or reimbursed by the employer in exchange for working at the company. That way, we can ensure that everyone can live on what they make. Of course, that also means that many employees will make much more than other people doing similar work. It also means that employees become, not masters of their own destiny, but more akin to slaves – being fed, housed, and clothed in exchange for working for the master. Is this what we want? It is if we think that wages should be based on need.
Instead of basing wages on need, a much better way is to base wages on the value of the work being done. In this view, a person who provides more value to the company should receive more pay while someone whose skills are less valuable receives less pay. This seems heartless on first glance, but actually has several advantages to both the company AND the worker.
The advantage to the company is obvious. Basing wages on the value of the work produces incentive for employees to do better quality work in order to receive better compensation. Plus, the burden of deciding what constitutes actual needs (as opposed to wants) is removed and the overhead involved in doling out welfare to all employees is gone. No one debates that paying for the value of the work is better for companies.
What many don’t realize is that a system where wages are based on the value of the work is actually better for employees.
For one thing, when compensation is based on need, it is nearly impossible to have anything more than the most basic needs met. No matter how hard you work in such a need-based system, you can’t get any more. The employer is only obligated to provide for your needs. If you want nicer things, you’re out of luck. No amount of harder work, increased skill, or better efficiency will get you more than the basics you need to survive.
What’s more, you can work your hardest and still get less than someone who doesn’t put in much effort, but has more need. This is tremendously disincentivizing and demoralizing. How can anyone have pride in their work when it doesn’t matter how hard they work? They will still get the same compensation as if they had barely done the minimum. And how depressing would it be to work very hard and have the guy at the next desk, who does practically nothing, getting the same or better than you. It’s simply not fair or right to pay different amounts for the same work or give the same pay for different amounts of work.
In a system where wages are based on the value of the work, a person can get ahead by working harder, developing new skills, or becoming more efficient. Their future is in their own hands. That is empowering. That gives people hope. It gives them reason to produce something of value that is useful to society because it is also useful to themselves personally.
Paying for the value of work rather than need gives people the opportunity to better themselves. It gives them incentive to do better and to have hope because they are masters of their own destiny, not slaves to a system.
A value-based system of wages is not only better for businesses and workers, but it is better for society as a whole. A society where everyone works to better themselves in order to provide more value, and thus earn a better wage, is a prosperous and thriving society. New inventions are made, new services offered, new businesses opened, new technology developed – all for the purpose of allowing individuals to better their lot in life. There is no incentive for developing these things in a need-based system. There is far more total production when everyone is working to provide more value in order to get more for themselves.
A system where people are paid based on need has no hope or future. A system where people are paid based on the value of their work is empowering to individuals and allows them to better themselves, provide for themselves and their families, and make their society more productive.
So, should we pay wages based on need or on the value of a person’s work? We can't have both.
If wages should be value-based, then we shouldn’t raise the minimum wage. We should allow individuals to be paid based on the value of their work. Those wishing to earn more must either work more hours or increase their skills. But they have that opportunity to decide for themselves and control their own destiny.
On the other hand, raising the minimum wage to a “living wage” simply means that those not providing enough value to be worth that minimum wage will have no jobs. It means cutting off hope for those of low skills who cannot make it into the job market. It means keeping a permanent underclass who have been priced out of jobs. It might sound compassionate to want to pay everyone enough to live on, but the results actually hurt those with poor job skills. And that isn’t good for anyone.
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
A More Accurate Political Spectrum
People often have
a mistaken view that fascism and communism are opposites, with modern
conservatives and liberals somewhere in between.
This political spectrum has communism as being to the far left and fascism as being to the far right. The argument is that while liberals are more like communists, conservatives are more like fascists. Part of the confusion on this issue stems from the fact that this political spectrum is actually taught in colleges. However, it is completely false (and I'm certainly not the first to point this out).
The truth is, communism and fascism have more similarities than differences. Both communism and fascism are forms of government that involve little or no freedom of the people. Both forms of government trample on the innate inalienable rights of the people. They also have many other similarities such as unlimited patriotism/nationalism (the country matters more than individuals or their rights), government-controlled media, government control of industry and trade, and lots of pro-government propaganda. Are you seeing a trend here? Fascism and communism are just different forms of overbearing and bloated government. They aren’t opposites at all.
A better understanding of the political spectrum is to rank forms of government by the amount of freedom the people have (or, inversely, how big and powerful government is). So, on this scale we have anarchy on one side and totalitarian regimes (such as communism and fascism) on the other.
Obviously, while anarchy offers complete freedom and no government oversight at all, the people have no one to protect their rights except themselves. It is difficult to protect one's life and property all alone against the rest of the world. One must be constantly ready to fight (think of the Wild West where there was little or no government) and the weak are easily taken advantage of. Thus, people form governments in order to protect their own rights. Anarchy simply isn’t a viable way to live for long.
However, on the opposite extreme we have governments that trample on the rights of the people. In this scenario, the greatest threat to one's life and property is not a solitary criminal but one's own government run rampant and unchecked. A government with unlimited power is even more to be feared than no government at all. At least in the case of anarchy one might have a chance of staving off an attack from lone predators that wish to do harm. But an organized and powerful government is something that no one person can stop.
The question is, what form of government and what level of governmental power is the best balance? The goal is to protect the people's inalienable rights (that is why they need government, after all) in order to promote freedom, not infringe upon it. One must have enough government power to punish and deter evildoers (those that infringe upon the rights of others). However, one must have a small enough government that the government itself does not infringe upon the rights of the people. In other words, you want the balance where people's rights are best protected. Since government out of control is more greatly to be feared than anarchy, the best balance is to have the smallest possible government that can protect the rights of the people adequately. This is also the most efficient use of resources because the smaller the government, the smaller the number of government middlemen that must be paid.
As for modern conservatives and liberals, liberals tend to move toward greater government power and conservatives tend to move toward lesser government power. The only thing we need to determine is which side of that ideal balance of governmental power we are currently on in order to determine which political view is best. Should we move toward greater or lesser government power in order to reach that balance point?
In order to answer that question, we need to first ask, do we have enough government power to provide for the punishment and deterrence of crime and other forcible infringement of rights? In other words, is our government's power sufficient for its most basic and necessary tasks? I believe so. Of course, crime still exists (as it always will), but we do have a government that is capable of investigating and punishing it. And we have a government that is capable of defending from outside invasion by those who would take away the freedoms of the citizens. So while this aspect might need some adjustment in details, government definitely has enough power to fulfill its mission to protect the people's rights. If it is failing to do so effectively enough, it is not from lack of power, but from lack of efficiency.
So, next we need to ask, is our government getting too powerful, infringing upon the people's rights and liberties itself? Yes, we are beginning to see some signs of government abuse of power and infringement of the people's rights and liberties. Therefore, we need to move back toward a smaller and more limited government where the people's rights are more secure and there is greater freedom.
 |
| Picture reference |
This political spectrum has communism as being to the far left and fascism as being to the far right. The argument is that while liberals are more like communists, conservatives are more like fascists. Part of the confusion on this issue stems from the fact that this political spectrum is actually taught in colleges. However, it is completely false (and I'm certainly not the first to point this out).
The truth is, communism and fascism have more similarities than differences. Both communism and fascism are forms of government that involve little or no freedom of the people. Both forms of government trample on the innate inalienable rights of the people. They also have many other similarities such as unlimited patriotism/nationalism (the country matters more than individuals or their rights), government-controlled media, government control of industry and trade, and lots of pro-government propaganda. Are you seeing a trend here? Fascism and communism are just different forms of overbearing and bloated government. They aren’t opposites at all.
A better understanding of the political spectrum is to rank forms of government by the amount of freedom the people have (or, inversely, how big and powerful government is). So, on this scale we have anarchy on one side and totalitarian regimes (such as communism and fascism) on the other.
 |
| Picture reference |
Obviously, while anarchy offers complete freedom and no government oversight at all, the people have no one to protect their rights except themselves. It is difficult to protect one's life and property all alone against the rest of the world. One must be constantly ready to fight (think of the Wild West where there was little or no government) and the weak are easily taken advantage of. Thus, people form governments in order to protect their own rights. Anarchy simply isn’t a viable way to live for long.
However, on the opposite extreme we have governments that trample on the rights of the people. In this scenario, the greatest threat to one's life and property is not a solitary criminal but one's own government run rampant and unchecked. A government with unlimited power is even more to be feared than no government at all. At least in the case of anarchy one might have a chance of staving off an attack from lone predators that wish to do harm. But an organized and powerful government is something that no one person can stop.
The question is, what form of government and what level of governmental power is the best balance? The goal is to protect the people's inalienable rights (that is why they need government, after all) in order to promote freedom, not infringe upon it. One must have enough government power to punish and deter evildoers (those that infringe upon the rights of others). However, one must have a small enough government that the government itself does not infringe upon the rights of the people. In other words, you want the balance where people's rights are best protected. Since government out of control is more greatly to be feared than anarchy, the best balance is to have the smallest possible government that can protect the rights of the people adequately. This is also the most efficient use of resources because the smaller the government, the smaller the number of government middlemen that must be paid.
As for modern conservatives and liberals, liberals tend to move toward greater government power and conservatives tend to move toward lesser government power. The only thing we need to determine is which side of that ideal balance of governmental power we are currently on in order to determine which political view is best. Should we move toward greater or lesser government power in order to reach that balance point?
In order to answer that question, we need to first ask, do we have enough government power to provide for the punishment and deterrence of crime and other forcible infringement of rights? In other words, is our government's power sufficient for its most basic and necessary tasks? I believe so. Of course, crime still exists (as it always will), but we do have a government that is capable of investigating and punishing it. And we have a government that is capable of defending from outside invasion by those who would take away the freedoms of the citizens. So while this aspect might need some adjustment in details, government definitely has enough power to fulfill its mission to protect the people's rights. If it is failing to do so effectively enough, it is not from lack of power, but from lack of efficiency.
So, next we need to ask, is our government getting too powerful, infringing upon the people's rights and liberties itself? Yes, we are beginning to see some signs of government abuse of power and infringement of the people's rights and liberties. Therefore, we need to move back toward a smaller and more limited government where the people's rights are more secure and there is greater freedom.
Monday, October 14, 2013
Do Christians Force Their Beliefs on Others?
Whenever
Christians take a stand on moral and political issues in public, you are likely
to hear liberals counter with “You can’t force your beliefs on other people.” I
totally agree that no one should force their beliefs on another person.
However, I disagree with the way the liberals use that phrase.
The way liberals use the phrase, they talk of Christians "forcing religion" on people when they are simply voting according to what they believe is right or practicing their faith in public. But forcing your beliefs on someone is when you use force (whether your own or the force of the government) to make them observe your religion or to try to coerce them into believing as you do. I don't see Christians doing that. I haven't heard anyone saying that government should force people to become Christians, to tithe to the church, to say prayers, or do any other religious observance. If anyone knows of such things happening, let me know. I’ll be first in line to say that it should not be happening.
The fact of the matter is that it is not, and should not be, illegal to practice your faith in public as long as you are not infringing on anyone's rights. In fact, the Bill of Rights specifically states that Congress may not "prohibit the free exercise" of religion. Allowing people to act and vote according to their religious beliefs is precisely what the First Amendment was designed to ensure.
One thing that confuses a lot of people is that a lot of Christians do vote (and otherwise participate in government) in ways that are consistent with their faith. For example, Christians believe that abortion is wrong, according to the Bible, and thus want it to be illegal. However, that is not forcing religion on anyone. They are not forcing anyone to agree with them, but are simply using their voice in government according to their own beliefs just like everyone does (including liberals). Everyone votes according to their own beliefs. The political views of Christians are informed by their religion, but that does not make any and all stances that they take a forcing of religion on others. If Christians were trying to force people to go to church on Sunday, that would be forcing religion on others. Having your faith influence the way you vote is simply exercising your religion in the public square, which is a Constitutionally-protected activity.
So there is nothing wrong with someone citing the Bible as reason for the way they vote and the laws they advocate. Christians have every right to do that, just as people of other belief systems have every right to use their beliefs to inform their political stances.
I will say, however, that we Christians should have independent reasons for the laws we advocate for. "The Bible says it is wrong" is not sufficient reason to make something illegal. After all, coveting and lust are wrong according to the Bible, but shouldn't be illegal (and how could you tell if someone is lusting or coveting, anyway?). Not all wrong things should be illegal. Not all good things should be required by law. We should keep this in mind whenever we take any political stance. When Christians give only religious reasons for making an activity illegal, we open ourselves up to the charge of forcing religion on people (even if it is not the case). Instead, we should also be giving informed and independent reasons why things like abortion should not be allowed by government. (Click here for my secular argument against abortion.) In other words, Christians need to be able to give reasons, not only that an activity is morally wrong or against our beliefs, but that a secular government should disallow it for all of its citizens.
The way liberals use the phrase, they talk of Christians "forcing religion" on people when they are simply voting according to what they believe is right or practicing their faith in public. But forcing your beliefs on someone is when you use force (whether your own or the force of the government) to make them observe your religion or to try to coerce them into believing as you do. I don't see Christians doing that. I haven't heard anyone saying that government should force people to become Christians, to tithe to the church, to say prayers, or do any other religious observance. If anyone knows of such things happening, let me know. I’ll be first in line to say that it should not be happening.
The fact of the matter is that it is not, and should not be, illegal to practice your faith in public as long as you are not infringing on anyone's rights. In fact, the Bill of Rights specifically states that Congress may not "prohibit the free exercise" of religion. Allowing people to act and vote according to their religious beliefs is precisely what the First Amendment was designed to ensure.
One thing that confuses a lot of people is that a lot of Christians do vote (and otherwise participate in government) in ways that are consistent with their faith. For example, Christians believe that abortion is wrong, according to the Bible, and thus want it to be illegal. However, that is not forcing religion on anyone. They are not forcing anyone to agree with them, but are simply using their voice in government according to their own beliefs just like everyone does (including liberals). Everyone votes according to their own beliefs. The political views of Christians are informed by their religion, but that does not make any and all stances that they take a forcing of religion on others. If Christians were trying to force people to go to church on Sunday, that would be forcing religion on others. Having your faith influence the way you vote is simply exercising your religion in the public square, which is a Constitutionally-protected activity.
So there is nothing wrong with someone citing the Bible as reason for the way they vote and the laws they advocate. Christians have every right to do that, just as people of other belief systems have every right to use their beliefs to inform their political stances.
I will say, however, that we Christians should have independent reasons for the laws we advocate for. "The Bible says it is wrong" is not sufficient reason to make something illegal. After all, coveting and lust are wrong according to the Bible, but shouldn't be illegal (and how could you tell if someone is lusting or coveting, anyway?). Not all wrong things should be illegal. Not all good things should be required by law. We should keep this in mind whenever we take any political stance. When Christians give only religious reasons for making an activity illegal, we open ourselves up to the charge of forcing religion on people (even if it is not the case). Instead, we should also be giving informed and independent reasons why things like abortion should not be allowed by government. (Click here for my secular argument against abortion.) In other words, Christians need to be able to give reasons, not only that an activity is morally wrong or against our beliefs, but that a secular government should disallow it for all of its citizens.
Thursday, August 22, 2013
Abortion and the "Hard Cases"
I responded there, but I thought I would also respond (with a few modifications) in a separate post because these kinds of questions are often asked by the pro-abortion crowd.
First of all, I'll point out that her distinction between "pro-abortion" and pro-choice" doesn't really exist. I use the terms interchangeably because they mean the same thing. If I said that I thought a man should have a choice of whether or not to rape a woman, I would rightfully be charged with being pro-rape. In the same way, to be in favor of allowing a woman to choose whether or not to abort means being in favor of abortion.
In discussing the rest of her post, keep in mind that this type of question is often asked as a "gotcha" question. The pro-abortion advocates seem to think these cases "prove" that it is okay to kill an unborn child in at least some cases. The cases mentioned are all referred to as "hard cases." These are the troubling stories that make some people, who would otherwise be pro-life, start to waffle and sweat. They think of how difficult it would be in that situation and their emotions make them want to offer such woman a way out - to fix her situation with an abortion. However, when you apply logical principles to these cases, they aren't as hard to solve as you might think.
Before I talk about these cases specifically, it should be mentioned that even IF abortion should be allowed in these difficult cases, that does not mean that abortion should be allowed for all cases. The vast majority of abortions do not involve rape, incest, or deformities of the child. These cases do not provide any reason to think that a woman should be able to kill a perfectly healthy unborn child, who resulted from consensual sex, simply because she doesn't want him.
In addressing the hard cases, we should do so by applying the same facts and logic that we apply in all other cases of pregnancy. As I have written elsewhere, science tells us that the unborn child is a separate and unique human individual who must, logically, have the same rights that all other human beings have. Applying this knowledge and some additional logic to the hard cases clears up a lot of confusion.
In cases of rape or incest, any child produced is still just as human as any other unborn child. There is no difference between a child conceived in rape and one conceived through consensual sex. And, of course, the child is innocent of any wrong doing. It isn't the child forcing himself on the woman - it was the rapist who forced her. So killing the child isn't the right or fair thing to do. The child doesn't deserve to die for the crime of his father. We don't consider those born from rape to deserving of death, so why give a death sentence before birth for those same children? Nor does having an abortion un-rape the woman. Two wrongs don't make a right, so killing the child is not the answer.
Oddly enough, the incidence of abortion is actually low among women who have been raped. Many rape victims have testified that giving birth has helped them to see themselves as overcomers who found a way to make something good come from their terrible ordeal. They may not have had a choice over what happened to them, but they can choose to do what is right after the fact and give life. On the other hand, having an abortion has been described by some as being raped all over again. Of course, these experiences of women do not determine what is right in these cases, but they do show that an abortion isn't the easy fix for rape that it is thought to be.
As for children with terrible birth defects and other issues, that would be a very difficult situation to be in. But to cut the life of these unborn children even shorter than it already will be seems the opposite of compassion. We don't kill people because they are going to die anyway. We make their short lives as comfortable as possible until natural death. That's what we do for people who are born and it should also apply to those unborn, because they are human beings too.
In cases where the mother threatens suicide or other self-harm, the baby still doesn't deserve to die. A woman who is threatening to harm herself needs help. If someone threatens suicide if you don't kill someone else, you don't for that reason kill the person they want dead. That's insane. You treat the one threatening suicide.
While these hard cases are often fraught with emotion and tough situations, the right thing to do is not dependent on how difficult or emotional it is. Emotion is not a valid basis for making decisions, especially when talking about the life of an innocent human being. Applying logical principles shows that the right thing to do is always to protect the unborn child.
Linked up with WLWW.
Monday, March 4, 2013
Why We Need A Secular Argument Against Abortion
Many pro-life advocates use the Bible in making their
arguments. While the Bible does have a lot to say about the unborn and about
the value of human life in general, the use of Biblical arguments in the
discussion of abortion’s legality is often well-intentioned, but misguided.
You see, laws in this country are not based on religion. In fact, our Founding Fathers specifically planned to create a nation where religious freedom was protected. In order to do that, one must have a secular country based on logical principles, not a theocracy.
History has shown that government based upon religion inevitably persecutes those who disagree with the religion in power. Many, if not most, of those who came to America and founded this nation came to escape religious persecution. They knew firsthand the dangers of living in a church state. They wanted to ensure freedom for all, so they set up a secular government and laid out basic principles to limit the government’s power and prevent oppression of the people. Their principles were based on the concept of inalienable rights – rights that are innate in every human being and which government cannot grant or take away. These rights include the right to life, liberty, ownership of property, religion, a fair trial, and many others – all developed from basic logical principles. And, in this country, laws are to be made by the people, but only in accordance with these principles so that no one's rights will be violated.
----------
To begin our argument we must first show that the unborn are living human beings. After all, only humans have human rights. To do that, we use science.
Science uses criteria such as growth, responsiveness to the environment, movement, and metabolism (using food for energy) in order to distinguish life from non-life. Living things, including a single-celled human zygote, show these characteristics and non-living things do not.
So, it’s quite obvious from science that the unborn are living things. What kind of living thing depends on what the parents are. Obviously, the offspring of human parents is human. This is confirmed by the presence of distinctly human DNA and a human pattern of development. Thus, it is clear from science that the product of human sperm and egg is alive and human.
Of course, even sperm and egg cells show characteristics of being alive and they have human DNA, but they are not separate organisms. A sperm or egg cell is simply a piece of an adult human’s body that is essentially broken off and on its own (just like a skin cell can be removed from the body and stay alive for a little while). So sperm and eggs are alive, but not capable by themselves of being anything more than a piece of the body they came from. But once a sperm and egg meet, a radical event takes place that forms a completely new entity. This new cell, a zygote, has a complete and unique set of human DNA that lays out the entire plan for its whole body.
Individual cells that are part of a larger body work to grow and preserve the larger body and are not important in themselves. All that matters is that the body survives, even at the expense of some of the cells. Thus, each cell works for the goal of supporting the body, not preserving itself. Once a zygote is formed, however, this new individual now works as a separate unit toward the goal of growing, preserving, and developing himself. He no longer functions as a part of another body, but forms a new body all his own. The zygote is in fact a new individual, different from both parents, that is already either male or female and which follows the distinct pattern of human development. It just takes time for him or her to grow. But all the information for building the adult body is there from the beginning. The development of the organs and organ systems is just a matter of time, but the instructions are already in place in the zygote, as is the ability to function as a separate entity. This is all well-understood science and can be found in any introductory biology textbook.
So, it is very clear from science that a zygote is a separate, living human individual. The argument that a human zygote is not alive or is not human has already been thoroughly debunked by science.
The newer argument put forth by the pro-choice bunch is that a zygote or embryo isn’t a person (which is a question of value, not science, and thus can’t be answered by science). Basically, the pro-choicers are trying to claim that not all humans are people, which is a very dangerous thing to claim.
The million-dollar question is, if not all humans are persons, then how do we know who is a person? When does personhood begin? Some say at birth. Some say at viability. Some say when the heart begins to beat. Some say when they’re self-conscious. So who gets to decide which definition of personhood is right? And what if they’re wrong? What if they’re allowing real persons to be killed? History says that’s what happens when you try to separate personhood and humanity. We’ve used other definitions of personhood in the past – definitions that excluded some members of the human race. But every time we have claimed that some human beings were not persons, we have been wrong.
At one time, our country claimed that blacks were not persons. Thus they were enslaved and mistreated as their inalienable rights were ignored and denied. The same thing has been done throughout history. Certain groups have been denied legal personhood in order to ignore their innate rights. In Nazi Germany, for example, the Jews were not legal persons, and thus the Holocaust, in which 6 million were slaughtered, was completely legal. It’s very convenient to claim that those you wish to kill or exploit are not persons. Thus, it’s a very common rationalization when one wishes to ignore the rights of others.
Every time we have claimed that some human beings were not persons, we have been wrong. Every time. And it led to horrific results. What is happening now is that we are saying that the unborn are not persons. And, not surprisingly, their rights are being ignored and they are being slaughtered.
But it’s not logical or right to claim that a human being must be born in order to be a person any more than it is to claim that a human being must be white or male or non-Jewish in order to be a person. Logically, all humans must be persons. To deny that is to use some arbitrary criteria for what constitutes a person and thus exclude some humans from that definition. Historically, that has always been wrong and has led to terrible tragedies of justice. What needs to happen is that we recognize and protect the inalienable rights of ALL human beings, born and unborn.
In claiming that the unborn are not persons, what the pro-choice side is really arguing is that we, as a society, decide who has rights. But rights don't come from society or from government. If government grants them, then government can decide, arbitrarily, to take them away from anyone they please. This country was founded on a different proposition – a radical idea that people have innate rights that are not dependent on government. That it is fundamentally wrong for anyone, even government, to violate these rights. These are known as inalienable rights – innate rights of all humans that cannot be taken away for any reason. It is on this fact – this higher law – that our case for the rights of the unborn rests. And it was this higher law on which our Constitution was built.
----------
The truth is, the unborn do have inalienable rights. They are human beings with the same rights as all other human beings. And those rights should be protected in a secular society just as the rights of all other humans should be. This can be demonstrated with science and logic and can convince even those who do not believe the Bible. More importantly, this is WHY abortion should be illegal – not because the Bible says it is wrong, but because abortion is a violation of basic human rights. All people should be in favor of protecting the rights of all human beings, regardless of their religion.
You see, laws in this country are not based on religion. In fact, our Founding Fathers specifically planned to create a nation where religious freedom was protected. In order to do that, one must have a secular country based on logical principles, not a theocracy.
History has shown that government based upon religion inevitably persecutes those who disagree with the religion in power. Many, if not most, of those who came to America and founded this nation came to escape religious persecution. They knew firsthand the dangers of living in a church state. They wanted to ensure freedom for all, so they set up a secular government and laid out basic principles to limit the government’s power and prevent oppression of the people. Their principles were based on the concept of inalienable rights – rights that are innate in every human being and which government cannot grant or take away. These rights include the right to life, liberty, ownership of property, religion, a fair trial, and many others – all developed from basic logical principles. And, in this country, laws are to be made by the people, but only in accordance with these principles so that no one's rights will be violated.
Of course, these logical principles are quite consistent with
a Biblical worldview – and not by accident. The concept of inalienable rights,
for example, comes from the view that mankind is the product of a Creator who has endowed them with these rights. Religious freedom is also consistent with
the Bible. After all, even God Himself does not force Himself upon anyone, but
gives all people the free choice to choose Him or not. But one cannot enforce
every doctrine from the Bible in a secular society. There are things that are
wrong, according to the Bible, which cannot be made law. How would one, for
example, make lust or coveting illegal? And while the Bible commands us to
remember the Sabbath day, one cannot enforce this on all people within a
society without violating their freedom of religion. Thus, not everything that
is wrong should be illegal.
How does one decide, then, what should and should not be legal in a secular
society? The answer lies in applying these basic logical principles and in
protecting the human rights of all the people. Thus, murder should be illegal –
not because the Bible says it is wrong, but because such a behavior violates
the inalienable right to live of the victim and because allowing such behavior
is bad for society. Similarly, theft should be illegal – not because the Bible
says it is wrong, but because theft violates the right to own property of the
victim, and because theft is bad for society.
If we hope to make abortion illegal we must use these same basic principles and
develop a secular argument for the rights of the unborn. It is this secular argument
we MUST be making if we are to succeed. Many of us who are pro-life are
Christians and have religious reasons to believe that abortion is morally wrong
according to the Bible. However, that does not mean that abortion should be
illegal in a secular society. We have to make the right argument if we are
going to produce change.
----------
So here is a secular argument that abortion should be illegal.
To begin our argument we must first show that the unborn are living human beings. After all, only humans have human rights. To do that, we use science.
Science uses criteria such as growth, responsiveness to the environment, movement, and metabolism (using food for energy) in order to distinguish life from non-life. Living things, including a single-celled human zygote, show these characteristics and non-living things do not.
So, it’s quite obvious from science that the unborn are living things. What kind of living thing depends on what the parents are. Obviously, the offspring of human parents is human. This is confirmed by the presence of distinctly human DNA and a human pattern of development. Thus, it is clear from science that the product of human sperm and egg is alive and human.
Of course, even sperm and egg cells show characteristics of being alive and they have human DNA, but they are not separate organisms. A sperm or egg cell is simply a piece of an adult human’s body that is essentially broken off and on its own (just like a skin cell can be removed from the body and stay alive for a little while). So sperm and eggs are alive, but not capable by themselves of being anything more than a piece of the body they came from. But once a sperm and egg meet, a radical event takes place that forms a completely new entity. This new cell, a zygote, has a complete and unique set of human DNA that lays out the entire plan for its whole body.
Individual cells that are part of a larger body work to grow and preserve the larger body and are not important in themselves. All that matters is that the body survives, even at the expense of some of the cells. Thus, each cell works for the goal of supporting the body, not preserving itself. Once a zygote is formed, however, this new individual now works as a separate unit toward the goal of growing, preserving, and developing himself. He no longer functions as a part of another body, but forms a new body all his own. The zygote is in fact a new individual, different from both parents, that is already either male or female and which follows the distinct pattern of human development. It just takes time for him or her to grow. But all the information for building the adult body is there from the beginning. The development of the organs and organ systems is just a matter of time, but the instructions are already in place in the zygote, as is the ability to function as a separate entity. This is all well-understood science and can be found in any introductory biology textbook.
So, it is very clear from science that a zygote is a separate, living human individual. The argument that a human zygote is not alive or is not human has already been thoroughly debunked by science.
The newer argument put forth by the pro-choice bunch is that a zygote or embryo isn’t a person (which is a question of value, not science, and thus can’t be answered by science). Basically, the pro-choicers are trying to claim that not all humans are people, which is a very dangerous thing to claim.
The million-dollar question is, if not all humans are persons, then how do we know who is a person? When does personhood begin? Some say at birth. Some say at viability. Some say when the heart begins to beat. Some say when they’re self-conscious. So who gets to decide which definition of personhood is right? And what if they’re wrong? What if they’re allowing real persons to be killed? History says that’s what happens when you try to separate personhood and humanity. We’ve used other definitions of personhood in the past – definitions that excluded some members of the human race. But every time we have claimed that some human beings were not persons, we have been wrong.
At one time, our country claimed that blacks were not persons. Thus they were enslaved and mistreated as their inalienable rights were ignored and denied. The same thing has been done throughout history. Certain groups have been denied legal personhood in order to ignore their innate rights. In Nazi Germany, for example, the Jews were not legal persons, and thus the Holocaust, in which 6 million were slaughtered, was completely legal. It’s very convenient to claim that those you wish to kill or exploit are not persons. Thus, it’s a very common rationalization when one wishes to ignore the rights of others.
Every time we have claimed that some human beings were not persons, we have been wrong. Every time. And it led to horrific results. What is happening now is that we are saying that the unborn are not persons. And, not surprisingly, their rights are being ignored and they are being slaughtered.
But it’s not logical or right to claim that a human being must be born in order to be a person any more than it is to claim that a human being must be white or male or non-Jewish in order to be a person. Logically, all humans must be persons. To deny that is to use some arbitrary criteria for what constitutes a person and thus exclude some humans from that definition. Historically, that has always been wrong and has led to terrible tragedies of justice. What needs to happen is that we recognize and protect the inalienable rights of ALL human beings, born and unborn.
In claiming that the unborn are not persons, what the pro-choice side is really arguing is that we, as a society, decide who has rights. But rights don't come from society or from government. If government grants them, then government can decide, arbitrarily, to take them away from anyone they please. This country was founded on a different proposition – a radical idea that people have innate rights that are not dependent on government. That it is fundamentally wrong for anyone, even government, to violate these rights. These are known as inalienable rights – innate rights of all humans that cannot be taken away for any reason. It is on this fact – this higher law – that our case for the rights of the unborn rests. And it was this higher law on which our Constitution was built.
----------
The truth is, the unborn do have inalienable rights. They are human beings with the same rights as all other human beings. And those rights should be protected in a secular society just as the rights of all other humans should be. This can be demonstrated with science and logic and can convince even those who do not believe the Bible. More importantly, this is WHY abortion should be illegal – not because the Bible says it is wrong, but because abortion is a violation of basic human rights. All people should be in favor of protecting the rights of all human beings, regardless of their religion.
Sunday, February 3, 2013
The Difference Between Liberalism and Conservatism
I think the real difference between conservatives and
liberals is that conservatives believe in an objective and constant truth and
morality. Society can be in line with it or not, but it exists, regardless of
whether or not anyone believes it. One example of this objective truth is the
concept of inalienable rights. These are rights that all humans have by virtue
of being human. Government does not grant them and government cannot take them
away. They apply to all people, everywhere, at all times throughout history. It
is inherently wrong for anyone to violate these rights, regardless of what the
law says. Good law is in keeping with these inherent rights while bad law
violates these rights.
In the US, our government was founded on the principle that all humans have these inalienable rights and that good government exists to protect these rights. Many of these rights were spelled out in the Declaration of Independence and in the Bill of Rights. However, not all the inalienable rights were listed there (nor were these documents meant to be a comprehensive listing).
All of these inalienable rights can be worked out logically from basic principles. For example, if anyone has any rights, they must first have a right to life. Without a right to live, there can be no rights. The right to self-defense comes directly from the right to life (i.e. you have a right to protect your right to life). The right to liberty is also derived from the right to life. If someone has power over you to enslave you, they also have the power to take your life, thus you have a right to fight against being enslaved in order to protect your life. The right to liberty also entails that you have the right to choose how to live your own life and make your own choices. It also means that you have a right to the fruits of your labor (a slave works for the benefit of someone else, but a free person works for his own profit as he chooses). If you have a right to the fruits of your labor, you also have a right to own property. If you can’t own anything, then you end up working for nothing, which makes you a slave. So you see how all these principles are worked out logically from beginning principles.
The idea of inalienable rights also holds within it an innate limitation on behavior because of the rights of others. If I have a right to own property, then it must be wrong for someone else to steal my property. If they can steal it rightfully, then I have worked as a slave for them. But if it is wrong for someone to steal my property, then it must also be wrong for me to steal their property. My behavior must be limited by the rights of others around me. Thus, my liberty to do as I choose is inherently limited to those actions which do not violate the rights of others.
It is on these principles that all our laws about crime are based. Murder is wrong because it is a violation of the inalienable right to life. Theft is wrong because it is a violation of the inalienable right to own property. Of course, we have laws in this country that make murder and theft illegal, but that’s not what makes them wrong. They would be wrong even if the law allowed these behaviors. And it would be inherently wrong for the law to allow such violations of human rights. The law doesn’t decide right and wrong. Right and wrong are based on objective principles. It is our duty, as citizens, to discern what inalienable rights exist and to protect them with good laws.
In the US, our government was founded on the principle that all humans have these inalienable rights and that good government exists to protect these rights. Many of these rights were spelled out in the Declaration of Independence and in the Bill of Rights. However, not all the inalienable rights were listed there (nor were these documents meant to be a comprehensive listing).
All of these inalienable rights can be worked out logically from basic principles. For example, if anyone has any rights, they must first have a right to life. Without a right to live, there can be no rights. The right to self-defense comes directly from the right to life (i.e. you have a right to protect your right to life). The right to liberty is also derived from the right to life. If someone has power over you to enslave you, they also have the power to take your life, thus you have a right to fight against being enslaved in order to protect your life. The right to liberty also entails that you have the right to choose how to live your own life and make your own choices. It also means that you have a right to the fruits of your labor (a slave works for the benefit of someone else, but a free person works for his own profit as he chooses). If you have a right to the fruits of your labor, you also have a right to own property. If you can’t own anything, then you end up working for nothing, which makes you a slave. So you see how all these principles are worked out logically from beginning principles.
The idea of inalienable rights also holds within it an innate limitation on behavior because of the rights of others. If I have a right to own property, then it must be wrong for someone else to steal my property. If they can steal it rightfully, then I have worked as a slave for them. But if it is wrong for someone to steal my property, then it must also be wrong for me to steal their property. My behavior must be limited by the rights of others around me. Thus, my liberty to do as I choose is inherently limited to those actions which do not violate the rights of others.
It is on these principles that all our laws about crime are based. Murder is wrong because it is a violation of the inalienable right to life. Theft is wrong because it is a violation of the inalienable right to own property. Of course, we have laws in this country that make murder and theft illegal, but that’s not what makes them wrong. They would be wrong even if the law allowed these behaviors. And it would be inherently wrong for the law to allow such violations of human rights. The law doesn’t decide right and wrong. Right and wrong are based on objective principles. It is our duty, as citizens, to discern what inalienable rights exist and to protect them with good laws.
Liberals tend to see things differently. They tend to see
morality as changing and based on what society agrees is right or wrong. Since,
in our country, society sets the laws, they see the law as determining right
and wrong (or determining what is and isn’t a right). So if the society votes
that it’s a right to have healthcare, then it becomes a right. Or if society
votes that the unborn aren’t humans, then they aren’t. It’s a totally different
view of reality and morality. And it’s totally opposed to the view that there
is an objective truth and morality. One side must be right and the other side
must be wrong.
Conservative positions are all worked out logically from the viewpoint of objective morality and these basic principles we believe in. For example, while the idea of government mandated universal healthcare sounds good and fair on the surface, it isn’t really. You see, no one has a right to any commodity (i.e. anything that costs money). If you look at the list of rights in the Bill of Rights, none of them costs money. You have a right to life, liberty, a fair trial, free speech, etc. But none of those require anyone to give you something that costs them money. If people have a right to healthcare (or housing or food or any other commodity), then someone is required to provide it to them (whether they can pay or not). This means that someone must work for it, but then be forced to give it to someone else for free. That makes that person a slave. People have a right to work in order to provide themselves with food or housing or healthcare. But they don’t have a right to force others to provide those things to them for free (thus enslaving those people). Oh, and by the way, having government pay for it just means you have a middle man that extorts the money from the people (the taxpayers, anyway) and then gives it to others. It’s still a case of enslaving people by forcing them to provide things to others for free.
The rest of our conservative principles are worked out in much the same way. You have to be able to think logically to understand conservatism. In contrast, liberal views are based primarily on emotion and on telling the people what they want to hear. They sound good on the surface, but either aren’t practical or are really a violation of human rights when you get right down to it.
So, on the one hand you have a group that bases its views on absolute morality and basic principles that are then applied logically while the other side is based on emotion and what feels and sounds good. That’s the primary difference between conservatives and liberals.
Conservative positions are all worked out logically from the viewpoint of objective morality and these basic principles we believe in. For example, while the idea of government mandated universal healthcare sounds good and fair on the surface, it isn’t really. You see, no one has a right to any commodity (i.e. anything that costs money). If you look at the list of rights in the Bill of Rights, none of them costs money. You have a right to life, liberty, a fair trial, free speech, etc. But none of those require anyone to give you something that costs them money. If people have a right to healthcare (or housing or food or any other commodity), then someone is required to provide it to them (whether they can pay or not). This means that someone must work for it, but then be forced to give it to someone else for free. That makes that person a slave. People have a right to work in order to provide themselves with food or housing or healthcare. But they don’t have a right to force others to provide those things to them for free (thus enslaving those people). Oh, and by the way, having government pay for it just means you have a middle man that extorts the money from the people (the taxpayers, anyway) and then gives it to others. It’s still a case of enslaving people by forcing them to provide things to others for free.
The rest of our conservative principles are worked out in much the same way. You have to be able to think logically to understand conservatism. In contrast, liberal views are based primarily on emotion and on telling the people what they want to hear. They sound good on the surface, but either aren’t practical or are really a violation of human rights when you get right down to it.
So, on the one hand you have a group that bases its views on absolute morality and basic principles that are then applied logically while the other side is based on emotion and what feels and sounds good. That’s the primary difference between conservatives and liberals.
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
What it Means to Be Conservative - Part 7: American Exceptionalism
To wrap up my series on what conservatism means, I'll mention one of the most common themes that conservatives share. We all see the United States of America as an exceptional nation in history, a unique and radical experiment in human governance that has brought about unrivaled prosperity and freedom for the people.
Here are the other parts of this series:
Part 1: Limited Government and Free Enterprise
Part 2: Anti-Elitism
Part 3: Wealth Creation
Part 4: Natural Law
Part 5: The Right to Bear Arms
Here are the other parts of this series:
Part 1: Limited Government and Free Enterprise
Part 2: Anti-Elitism
Part 3: Wealth Creation
Part 4: Natural Law
Part 5: The Right to Bear Arms
Part 6: Legal Immigration
Each of these topics gives a piece of the puzzle - a partial explanation of why the United States is so unique. You see, what we now know as conservatism is really just about sticking to the tried and true principles and policies that made this country great.
The self-labelled "progressives" advocate changing these principles - replacing them with "new" and "modern" ones. However, we conservatives realize that the "new" ideas of the progressives have been tried over and over throughout history and have never worked. They put a new name on them, dress them up in fancy words or catchy slogans, but they're the same old ideas that have led to the poverty, disenfranchisement, enslavement, tyranny, and oppression that have plagued human civilizations for thousands of years. The real new and progressive idea is that might does not make right, that all people have rights that others (including government) should not violate, that all people should be free to pursue their own dreams and aspirations without fear that someone will take the fruits of their labor or bring them harm. No other country has been founded upon such an idea.
The United States is great precisely because we have a government that is not all powerful, but is limited in its ability to control the citizens and therefore leaves the people free to pursue their own aims and to produce, trade, and invest freely. We are different because we recognize and protect the inalienable rights of the people and because we apply these protections to all people, not just an elite few.
However, these ideals upon which our country was founded are being undermined and attacked by those who are convinced that they have a better way. Science, logic, and history are apparently irrelevant to them and they appeal primarily to the emotions. Unfortunately, few have really learned conservative principles or how to explain them to a country that is increasingly interested only in what government can do for them. The need for education on this issue is great, so spread the word about what conservatism really means.
And so here is the last of the videos from Bill Whittle on American Exceptionalism. In it he gives evidence that the United States is exceptional in all the major ways that a country can be exceptional and tells us why. It's well worth watching.
Each of these topics gives a piece of the puzzle - a partial explanation of why the United States is so unique. You see, what we now know as conservatism is really just about sticking to the tried and true principles and policies that made this country great.
The self-labelled "progressives" advocate changing these principles - replacing them with "new" and "modern" ones. However, we conservatives realize that the "new" ideas of the progressives have been tried over and over throughout history and have never worked. They put a new name on them, dress them up in fancy words or catchy slogans, but they're the same old ideas that have led to the poverty, disenfranchisement, enslavement, tyranny, and oppression that have plagued human civilizations for thousands of years. The real new and progressive idea is that might does not make right, that all people have rights that others (including government) should not violate, that all people should be free to pursue their own dreams and aspirations without fear that someone will take the fruits of their labor or bring them harm. No other country has been founded upon such an idea.
The United States is great precisely because we have a government that is not all powerful, but is limited in its ability to control the citizens and therefore leaves the people free to pursue their own aims and to produce, trade, and invest freely. We are different because we recognize and protect the inalienable rights of the people and because we apply these protections to all people, not just an elite few.
However, these ideals upon which our country was founded are being undermined and attacked by those who are convinced that they have a better way. Science, logic, and history are apparently irrelevant to them and they appeal primarily to the emotions. Unfortunately, few have really learned conservative principles or how to explain them to a country that is increasingly interested only in what government can do for them. The need for education on this issue is great, so spread the word about what conservatism really means.
And so here is the last of the videos from Bill Whittle on American Exceptionalism. In it he gives evidence that the United States is exceptional in all the major ways that a country can be exceptional and tells us why. It's well worth watching.
-----
Here are all the parts of this series on What it Means to Be Conservative:
Part 1: Limited Government and Free Enterprise
Part 2: Anti-Elitism
Part 3: Wealth Creation
Part 4: Natural Law
Part 5: The Right to Bear Arms
Part 6: Legal Immigration
Part 7: American Exeptionalism
Here are all the parts of this series on What it Means to Be Conservative:
Part 1: Limited Government and Free Enterprise
Part 2: Anti-Elitism
Part 3: Wealth Creation
Part 4: Natural Law
Part 5: The Right to Bear Arms
Part 6: Legal Immigration
Part 7: American Exeptionalism
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
What it Means to Be Conservative - Part 6: Legal Immigration
Here's the next installment of the series on what it means to be conservative. If you missed the earlier posts, check them out.
Part 1: Limited Government and Free Enterprise
Part 2: Anti-Elitism
Part 3: Wealth Creation
Part 4: Natural Law
Part 5: The Right to Bear Arms
I started the series, in part, to help inform people in advance of the 2012 election. Seeing that the conservatives lost, it is perhaps even more important that we explain to our culture what we believe and why. Apparently, the conservative position is not being heard in our culture, and even many who call themselves conservatives don't know what they believe and why. So here we go with Part 6.
In this video clip, Bill Whittle explains the conservative view of immigration. It is often said that we are against immigrants, but that is just not true. We are in favor of immigration - as long as it's legal. In fact, most of us would like to make it easier for people to come to our great country legally. But we are against illegal immigration because...well, it's illegal. And because illegal immigrants are putting themselves ahead of all the people who waited in line and went through the proper procedure to come here. That's not fair or right.
Not only do we conservatives want to stop illegal immigration, but we realize that having a border that is not secure, over which people can come and go at will, is not safe for our citizens. Thus, protecting our borders is important to protecting the citizens and their property.
We realize that some people crossing the border are simply wanting to come to the United States to get a better life for themselves and their families. But fleeing lawlessness and oppression only to break the law as their first act in their new country is not the proper way to accomplish their goal. They need to go back and get in line like everyone else.
Of course, many of those crossing the border illegally are not doing it with the intent of becoming Americans, but with the intent of harming us and taking from us. We must control our borders in order to stop these people from bringing harm to our citizens. To ignore the problem is to refuse to do the proper job of government, which is to protect the rights of its citizens.
So that's my two cents. Here's the video so you can hear the full argument for yourselves.
Part 1: Limited Government and Free Enterprise
Part 2: Anti-Elitism
Part 3: Wealth Creation
Part 4: Natural Law
Part 5: The Right to Bear Arms
I started the series, in part, to help inform people in advance of the 2012 election. Seeing that the conservatives lost, it is perhaps even more important that we explain to our culture what we believe and why. Apparently, the conservative position is not being heard in our culture, and even many who call themselves conservatives don't know what they believe and why. So here we go with Part 6.
In this video clip, Bill Whittle explains the conservative view of immigration. It is often said that we are against immigrants, but that is just not true. We are in favor of immigration - as long as it's legal. In fact, most of us would like to make it easier for people to come to our great country legally. But we are against illegal immigration because...well, it's illegal. And because illegal immigrants are putting themselves ahead of all the people who waited in line and went through the proper procedure to come here. That's not fair or right.
Not only do we conservatives want to stop illegal immigration, but we realize that having a border that is not secure, over which people can come and go at will, is not safe for our citizens. Thus, protecting our borders is important to protecting the citizens and their property.
We realize that some people crossing the border are simply wanting to come to the United States to get a better life for themselves and their families. But fleeing lawlessness and oppression only to break the law as their first act in their new country is not the proper way to accomplish their goal. They need to go back and get in line like everyone else.
Of course, many of those crossing the border illegally are not doing it with the intent of becoming Americans, but with the intent of harming us and taking from us. We must control our borders in order to stop these people from bringing harm to our citizens. To ignore the problem is to refuse to do the proper job of government, which is to protect the rights of its citizens.
So that's my two cents. Here's the video so you can hear the full argument for yourselves.
As a side note, I will say that I disgree with one minor point in this video - namely the timeline given of 11,000 years of human history. But that's a topic for another day.
-----
Here are all the parts of this series on What it Means to Be Conservative:
Part 1: Limited Government and Free Enterprise
Part 2: Anti-Elitism
Part 3: Wealth Creation
Part 4: Natural Law
Part 5: The Right to Bear Arms
Part 6: Legal Immigration
Part 7: American Exeptionalism
-----
Here are all the parts of this series on What it Means to Be Conservative:
Part 1: Limited Government and Free Enterprise
Part 2: Anti-Elitism
Part 3: Wealth Creation
Part 4: Natural Law
Part 5: The Right to Bear Arms
Part 6: Legal Immigration
Part 7: American Exeptionalism
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Demolishing Pro-Choice Arguments
The pro-abortion
crowd can be a little slippery with their arguments. They decided long before
they looked at the evidence that they wanted abortion to be okay so it could be
made legal. It was just a matter of rationalizing their idea to get people to
agree with them. In order to do this, they have employed a number of tactics
designed to explain away an unborn child’s right to life and justify
abortion.
Linked up with NOBH, WFMW, Growing Home, Seeds of Faith, WLWW, Time-Warp Wife, and Teaching What is Good.
They started out by denying that the unborn child was alive.
"We don't know when life begins," they said. Then science made it
very clear when life begins. At fertilization a new individual with a unique
set of DNA is formed. That is simple fact. Check any introductory biology text.
A fetus grows and develops. Non-living things do not do that. There is no
question that the unborn are alive from the moment of conception.
So they updated their argument and said that maybe it was
alive, but it wasn't human. It's just a fish or a frog...or maybe just a lump
of tissue. Well, science had something to say about that too. The unborn child
has human DNA and follows the unique human development sequence. Ultrasounds
show that it is definitely a developing individual, not simply an overgrowth of
tissue. The unborn child can be shown to be genetically distinct from the
mother. No question, science says it is a separate human being.
So, the next argument was that maybe it's a live human, but
it's not a person. This is a trickier argument because science cannot answer
this one. This is a metaphysical question of value, not scientific fact. To use
this trick, they had to differentiate between humans and persons in some way.
They use various criteria for the all-important difference, but none of them
hold up to scrutiny. The most common argument is that a fetus isn't a person
because it isn't self-conscious. Well, we don't really know that, but even if
it is true, the same could be said of newborns. There is nothing that happens at
birth that changes a baby’s state of consciousness (or anything else, for that
matter). On top of that, there are others we consider persons who also lack
self-consciousness - those who are in a coma or a vegetative state, for
example. Even healthy children and adults are unconscious during sleep or while
under anesthesia. Are these not persons when they lack consciousness? Are they
not entitled to the protection of the law? Obviously, this argument has fatal flaws.
Actually, there are just 4 differences between an unborn
child and other human beings:
-
Size
- Location
- Stage of Development
- Degree of Dependency
None of these form a logical basis for denying personhood.
You cannot use any of these criteria to define personhood without serious
ethical ramifications because you would be denying personhood to many
individuals, not just the unborn.
The last argument, and the one which is perhaps the most
sinister, is that an unborn child is indeed a living human person, but that it
has no right to live off of its mother. The mother's right to bodily autonomy,
they say, is absolute and no child has the right to use his mother's body for
shelter or sustenance. They view the child as a parasite, feeding from the
mother, and this gives her every right to kill him in their opinion. What a
twisted view!
The thing is, a woman's body is designed to bear children
and the existence of a child within her womb is not at all like a parasite
taking from its host. Further, a woman has a responsibility to her child. A mother
cannot refuse to feed her child after he is born. She cannot leave a newborn
out in the cold to die. The child has an inalienable right to live. When you create a child,
you have the unavoidable responsibility for taking care of that life. Outside
the womb, this means you must feed and shelter that child. It means the same
thing before birth. The difference is, before birth the options are more
limited as to where that care can take place. The unborn child needs the
protection of the mother's womb just as babies who have been born need clothing
and milk. A mother cannot refuse to meet the needs in the latter case, so why
should she be allowed to neglect the needs in the former case? The child's
rights have not changed. The mother's responsibility has not changed. Birth
changes only the location of the baby - not his status as a human being and not
his right to live.
Linked up with NOBH, WFMW, Growing Home, Seeds of Faith, WLWW, Time-Warp Wife, and Teaching What is Good.
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"If raped you feel the woman should be forced to carry to term? If an 11 year old is raped by her father or other relative, she should also carry to term? If prenatal testing identifies gross anomalies, the fetus should still be carried to term even if it will die shortly after birth? If the mother of that poor fetus is carrying her second or third child with gross anomalies and says she will kill herself if forced to watch another infant die, she should be forced to carry to term anyway?
Your world view doesn't work for all of us. I've been pro choice (not pro abortion) for decades. Judge not lest ye be judged."