“Jane Roe” or Roe v Wade is now a prolife Christian. She’s recently done a commercial about it.
Around 1993 my wife Jill and I peacefully walked the streets of Little Rock with Rev Flip Benham who was working with Operation Rescue at the time. We held pro-life signs up and heard some moving stories those two days that we participated.
We could tell that Rev Benham was a man of prayer. He believed in it and practiced it often. Little did we know what the events of the next couple of years would be.
Roe v Wade case was actually about a lady named Jane Roe, but the lady’s name was actually Norma McCorvey. Wikipedia puts it like this:
In 1995, Norma McCorvey was working at a clinic in Dallas when Operation Rescue moved in next door. She allegedly struck up a friendship over cigarettes with Operation Rescue preacher Flip Benham, who incorporates his Christian belief with his stance against abortion.
Norma McCorvey said that Flip Benham talked to her and was kind to her. She became friends with him, attended church and was baptized. She surprised the world by going on national television to say that she now believed abortion was wrong.
Norma McCorvey had been in a lesbian relationship for years, but she eventually denounced lesbianism as well after her conversion to Christianity. Within a few years of her first book, Norma McCorvey had written a second book, Won By Love: Norma McCorvey, Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade, Speaks Out for the Unborn as She Shares Her New Conviction for Life.
One man or an elite giving authoritative arbitrary absolutes.
A. Society is sole absolute in absence of other absolutes.
B. But society has to be led by an elite: John Kenneth Galbraith, Robert Theobald.
C. Daniel Bell’s prophecy of technocratic elite.
D. Bell’s warning of cultural contradiction: no absolute ethic to accompany absolute power.
II. Nature of the New Authoritarianism
A. Do not think of the model of Hitler and Stalin.
B. Probably a manipulative, authoritarian elite.
III. Possible Forms of Manipulation
A. Review from Episode Six: Koestler—chemical agents; Krantz—birth control in world’s drinking supply; Clark—political leaders should take anti-aggression pills; Lee—psychological tests for public officials; Skinner—reinforcers to modify behavior.
B. Genetic condition: Francis Crick.
1. He advocates:
a) That some group of people is to decide who should be the parents of the next generation and who should be born.
b) That some group of people should determine what kind of people they want in the future and will set out genetically to make them.
2. Once Man is no longer seen as made in God’s image, there is no reason not to “tinker” with Man genetically.
C. The mass media.
1. TV conditions by selective editing. Illustration: simulated riot filmed in San Jose.
2. No collusion needed if views of elite and newsmakers coincide. Media not monolithic, but total control not needed to achieve manipulation.
IV Authoritarianism in Government. Illustration: United States
A. The dilemma of people who speak out for civil liberties but are also committed to the government’s having a responsibility to solve every problem.
B. Christian freedoms without Christian base produce chaos.
C. In the United States an authoritarian, manipulating government could come from the administrative (executive) side, the legislature, or from the courts functioning on variable, sociological law.
V. Threat of Authoritarianism
A. Leftist or Rightist authoritarianism are only two roads to the same end.
B. With the loss of Christian consensus, no reason for young or old committed to apathy not to give in if promised personal peace and affluence.
C. Roman bridge simile: humanist values collapse under pressure.
D. Some overwhelming pressures which progressively tend to prepare modern people to accept a manipulative, authoritarian government:
1. Economic breakdown.
a) Spiral of inflation leads to economic recession.
b) Fear of economic breakdown swamps concern for liberty.
2. Random violence and political terrorism. Fear can be so great than any compromise is worth security.
3. Threat of War between the West and expansionist Communist Block. Fear of war opens the way for many to accept authoritarianism as lesser evil.
4. World food shortage and change in world distribution of wealth and goods.
a) Threat of lower living standards alters basic attitudes.
b) Authoritarianism more likely to be accepted in a descending spiral of prosperity and a country’s place of power.
E. As in the days of Caesar Augustus (Episode One), authoritarianism is most easily accepted if it is brought in while seeming to keep the outward forms of constitutionality.
VI. Two Alternatives to Chaos:
Either authoritarianism—or society’s affirming once again the original source of freedom, God’s revelation in the Bible, and His revelation through Christ.
A. Reconsidering the second alternative.
1. Nonpragmatic nature of biblical Christianity.
a) Christianity not a superior utilitarianism to mend society; Christianity is truth that gives a unity to all of knowledge and all of life.
b) Stems from the infinite-personal God who exists and who was the Maker of the heavens and the earth.
c) The acceptance of Christ as Savior and Lord, living under the absolutes which the Bible gives.
d) Christians have a responsibility to influence society across its whole spectrum and the entire spectrum of life.
e) Christians can influence consensus without being a majority.
2. The message of Paul to the Greek and Roman world applied.
a) Classical-humanist answers insufficient.
b) World is guilty of suppressing God’s truth and living accordingly. The universe and its form and the mannishness of Man speak the same truth that the Bible gives in greater detail.
c) Biblical Christianity is a message that people can return to God on the basis of Christ’s work alone, but it also gives the base for form and freedom in society.
d) It is this which can give us a hope for the future.
e) It is either this or an imposed order.
B. A reminder about presuppositions.
1. People act out their thoughts, whether they know it or not.
2. All depends on the world view one accepts and lives upon.
Questions
1. The theory of human biological manipulation, granted its premises, is entirely consistent. Outline these premises and the way in which various programs of manipulation are derived from them.
2. In a world moving steadily towards authoritarian regimes, does the relative slowness of Western democracies to lose their freedoms increase or decrease the likelihood of the West’s political survival? Give reasons.
3. Can you think of ways in which you and your church’s attitudes to society betray the utilitarian approach to the world? Does this approach reflect ignorance about the Truth and guilt about our failure to live it? What is the alternative approach and what does it reflect?
Key Events and Persons
Paul’s speech in Athens: c. A.D. 53
Paul’s Epistle to the Romans: c. A.D. 60
J.K. Galbraith: 1908-
Francis Crick: 1916-
Daniel Bell: 1919-
The Coming of the Post-Industrial Society: 1973
Robert Theobald: 1929-
Further Study
As an exercise, you might find it valuable to collect clippings which deal with the subjects discussed and see what attitudes are betrayed by the authors. To pool such clippings in a group for the purpose of joint examination would be very illuminating.
Daniel Boorstin, The Image (1961).
Jacques Ellul, Propaganda (1965).
Francis Crick, Of Molecules and Men (1967).
Francis Crick, Origins of the Genetic Code (1968).
Gordon R. Taylor, The Biological Time-Bomb (1969).
Daniel Bell, The Coming of the Post-Industrial Society (1973).
E.M.B. Green, Evangelism in the Early Church (1970).
Francis A. Schaeffer, Death in the City (1969).
Nevil Shute, On the Beach (1952).
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Communism: A Legacy of Terror (1975).
Richard M. Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences (1965.)
The Roots of the Emergent Church by Francis Schaeffer
Francis Shaeffer – The early church (part1)
Francis Shaeffer – The early church (part 2)
Francis Shaeffer – The early church (part 3)
Francis Shaeffer – The early church (part 4)
Francis Shaeffer – The early church (part 5)
How Should We then Live Episode 7 small (Age of Nonreason)
#02 How Should We Then Live? (Promo Clip) Dr. Francis Schaeffer
10 Worldview and Truth
Two Minute Warning: How Then Should We Live?: Francis Schaeffer at 100
Francis Schaeffer Whatever Happened to the Human Race (Episode 1) ABORTION
Francis Schaeffer “BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY” Whatever…HTTHR
E P I S O D E 1 0 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode X – Final Choices 27 min FINAL CHOICES I. Authoritarianism the Only Humanistic Social Option One man or an elite giving authoritative arbitrary absolutes. A. Society is sole absolute in absence of other absolutes. B. But society has to be […]
E P I S O D E 9 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode IX – The Age of Personal Peace and Affluence 27 min T h e Age of Personal Peace and Afflunce I. By the Early 1960s People Were Bombarded From Every Side by Modern Man’s Humanistic Thought II. Modern Form of Humanistic Thought Leads […]
E P I S O D E 8 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode VIII – The Age of Fragmentation 27 min I saw this film series in 1979 and it had a major impact on me. T h e Age of FRAGMENTATION I. Art As a Vehicle Of Modern Thought A. Impressionism (Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, […]
E P I S O D E 7 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode VII – The Age of Non Reason I am thrilled to get this film series with you. I saw it first in 1979 and it had such a big impact on me. Today’s episode is where we see modern humanist man act […]
E P I S O D E 6 How Should We Then Live 6#1 Uploaded by NoMirrorHDDHrorriMoN on Oct 3, 2011 How Should We Then Live? Episode 6 of 12 ________ I am sharing with you a film series that I saw in 1979. In this film Francis Schaeffer asserted that was a shift in […]
E P I S O D E 5 How Should We Then Live? Episode 5: The Revolutionary Age I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Francis Schaeffer noted, “Reformation Did Not Bring Perfection. But gradually on basis of biblical teaching there […]
Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode IV – The Reformation 27 min I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer makes three key points concerning the Reformation: “1. Erasmian Christian humanism rejected by Farel. 2. Bible gives needed answers not only as to […]
Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 3 “The Renaissance” Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 3) THE RENAISSANCE I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer really shows why we have so […]
Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 2) THE MIDDLE AGES I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer points out that during this time period unfortunately we have the “Church’s deviation from early church’s teaching in regard […]
Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 1) THE ROMAN AGE Today I am starting a series that really had a big impact on my life back in the 1970′s when I first saw it. There are ten parts and today is the first. Francis Schaeffer takes a look at Rome and why […]
The opening song at the beginning of this episode is very insightful. Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis This crucial series is narrated by the late Dr. Francis Schaeffer and former Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop. Today, choices […]
It is not possible to know where the pro-life evangelicals are coming from unless you look at the work of the person who inspired them the most. That person was Francis Schaeffer. I do care about economic issues but the pro-life issue is the most important to me. Several years ago Adrian Rogers (past president of […]
In a interview with Chicago’s Don Wade & Roma radio show this morning, Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky claimed that Americans aren’t entitled to all of their own money.
Toward the end of a wide-ranging interview, the hosts played a clip from this week’s Republican Presidential Debate where California teenager Tyler Hinsley asked, “Of every dollar that I earn, how much do you think I deserve to keep?” Co-host Don Wade asked Schakowsky to answer the same question.
After some initial back-and-forth, she replied, “I’ll put it this way, you don’t deserve to keep all of it. It’s not a question of deserving, because what government is, is those things that we decide to do together.”
Despite the hosts’ persistence, Schakowsky declined to answer what percentage of a person’s income they deserved to keep. “I pay at a 35% tax rate, happy to do it,” she explained when the hosts persisted with their question. She again declined to say how much more she would personally be willing to pay.
But Rep. Schakowsky is not alone. Her views are sadly typical of a liberal worldview that sees a person’s earnings as belonging first to the state. In fact, the left is now doubling down on this misguided belief, with the President pushing for more stimulus spending despite the failures of earlier “stimulus.”
But while the left continues to promote the same failed policies—more taxes, more regulation, more big government—conservatives need to trumpet the benefits of low taxes, sensible regulations, and small government. As Heritage’s Dubay explains:
The best way to grow revenues is to promote faster economic growth, which will increase the number of taxpayers and taxable income more rapidly. Tax hikes—whether through higher tax rates or slashing credits, deductions, and exemptions without offsetting reductions elsewhere—will not do the job. Under President Obama’s current policies, spending will continue to grow at a faster rate than can be paid for by tax hikes—even assuming the huge tax increases the President insists upon. To add insult to injury, as history has shown, tax hikes would slow economic growth and make it even harder for unemployed Americans to find a job.
Bill O’Reilly Interviews Jehmu Greene About Pro-Life Super Bowl Ad about Tim Tebow
I got these quotes from someone off the internet that lives in England. The funny thing is the video is put to music and the song they picked won a grammy for an Arkansas band that lives in Little Rock. Here is the video clip.
Thou shall NOT kill Exodus 20:1
“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb Psalm 139:13
Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you” Jeremiah 1:5
I was cast upon thee from the womb; thy art my God from my mothers belly Psalm 22:10
Abortion is advocated only by people who have already been born Ronald Reagan
If we accept that a mother can kill her own child, how can we tell other people to not kill each other? Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love but, rather, to use violence to get what they want Mother Theresa
“In modern Britain the most dangerous place to be is in your mother’s womb. It should be a place of sanctity. Edward Leigh, Conservative MP
Only half the patients who go into an abortion clinic come out alive Author Unknown
“There is no difference between a first, second or third trimester abortion or infanticide. It’s all the same human being in different stages of development. I finally got to the point I couldn’t look at those little bodies anymore” Dr Arnold Halpern
Even as early as 12 weeks a baby is totally formed. He has fingerprints, turns his head, fans his toes and feels pain. But we would say ‘It’s not a baby yet. It’s just tissue, like a clot'” Dr Cathy Sparks
“The doctors would remove the foetus and lay it on the table, where it would squirm until it died. They all had perfect forms and shapes. I couldn’t take it. No nurse could” Joyce Craig
Even though our counselors see six week babies daily, with arms, legs and eyes that are closed like newborn puppies, they lie to the women. How many women would have an abortion, if they told them the truth? Carol Everitt (Abortion Clinic owner)
“I have never known a woman who, after her baby was born, was not overjoyed that I had not killed it” Dr Aleck Bourne
“I hated putting babies in strainers and rinsing them off and putting them in zip-lock bags” Eric Harrah
“They are never allowed to look at the ultrasound because we knew that if they so much as heard the heart beat, they wouldn’t want to have an abortion Dr Randall
“We tried to avoid the women seeing the foetus. They always wanted to know the sex, but we lied and said it was too early to tell. It’s better for the women to think of the foetus as an ‘it’ Norma Eidelman (Abortion Clinic worker)
“Now, the baby I aborted was eleven weeks old, and can you imagine what this did to me when I saw this baby with the hands and face, sucking his thumb? And they told me it was a cluster of cells!” Carole K (State Director of Women Exploited by Abortion)
“My heart got callous to against the fact that I was a murderer – but that baby lying in a cold bowl educated me as to what abortion really was” Dr David Brewer (Former Abortionist)
Judging by the expression on Everton goalkeeper Tim Howard’s face in the picture above, you might assume he was the keeper who just got scored on by his counterpart from 100 yards out instead of the one who just shocked and delighted his teammates and home fans by being the scorer. He was the scorer, though, putting Everton up 1-0 on Bolton in the 63rd minute with considerable help from the strong winds whipping around Goodison Park (see the goal here).
It was just the fourth goal scored by a keeper in the Premier League (which only dates back to 1992, when it replaced the old First Division, mind you) and second from an American (the other being Brad Friedel in 2004). It was also fellow American Landon Donovan’s first match back with Everton since the start of his second loan spell with the club. And though ecstatic teammate Johnny Heitinga jumped into his arms, Howard kept his poker face and tried to move on with the match because he was thinking more about how bad opposing keeper Adam Bogdan must’ve felt at that moment.
“I was delighted that we were in the lead and would hopefully go on to get three points, but it’s not a nice feeling for a keeper. It’s really awful actually,” Howard told Sky Sports. “For the back four and the goalkeepers at both ends, there was an awful wind swirling. You could see everybody was mistiming balls. Defenders were missing clearances that normally they would put up the field. I think the wind is the hardest condition to play in. Snow, rain, sun doesn’t matter, but the wind really does play tricks on you.”
Howard spoke with Bogdan after the match.
“I let him know that I was feeling for him,” Howard said. “It’s not a nice place to be. I’ve been there before, a long, long time ago, and that was why I didn’t celebrate.”
The sting of that goal was probably taken away by the fact that Bolton went on to score twice in just 15 minutes right after that to win 2-1. So it could’ve been worse for Bogdan. He could’ve been the goalkeeper who had the wind conspire to make him score on himself.
Social Security is currently unsustainable. It began running deficits in 2010 and its trust fund will be exhausted by 2036, which is when seniors will see about a 25 percent cut in benefits. This is the scenario we face if Congress and the President fail to enact meaningful entitlement reform and continue reckless fiscal policies. This course is reversible, however.
At a recent House Budget Committee hearing on the fiscal facts concerning Medicare and Social Security, Members were divided on how to save Social Security. Despite hearing from Steve Goss, Social Security’s chief actuary, that raising taxes is not a necessity, tax hikes remained the leading option among certain lawmakers. Both parties agree that Social Security is insolvent, but they disagree on what to do about it.
Raising taxes, however, is not an option. Amidst the greatest recession in three decades, higher payroll taxes threaten to damage the American economy. Heritage has a new plan for Social Security, as presented in Saving the American Dream. It promises to restore fiscal responsibility and protect Americans from unneeded tax hikes.
At present, workers and their employers each pay 6.2 percent for Social Security retirement and disability benefits, adding up to a 12.4 percent payroll tax that is levied on every single worker’s income. If the government were to increase this tax to pay for Social Security’s deficits, every American worker and his boss would split an increase of at least 2.2 percent. Raising these taxes will discourage employers from hiring new workers and exacerbate unemployment.
Tax-loving lawmakers then turn to the tax cap. Social Security taxes are currently deducted only from the first $106,800 each worker earns. But some lawmakers suggest that any money Americans don’t “need” is fair game for tax hikes. President Obama most recently revealed this philosophy, fundamentally at odds with America’s job creators, during a press conference on the debt limit. Similarly, certain members at the recent House Budget Committee hearing suggested lifting the cap on the Social Security payroll tax to pay for the program’s shortfall. But taking more money out of the private economy limits entrepreneurial exercise—the true source of wealth in any free-market economy.
The Heritage Foundation plan does not call for unnecessary tax increases. Instead, it restores Social Security to its original purpose of being a safeguard against senior poverty. The plan includes both a transition into a flat benefit for those who work more than 35 years, as well as phasing out Social Security benefits for those who have significant non-Social Security retirement income. The plan also contains incentives to encourage Americans to work beyond the age at which they would normally receive benefits. Because Americans are living longer than ever before, they are spending more years in retirement. Therefore, Saving the American Dreamcalls for gradually increasing the retirement age and then indexing it to life expectancy.
Unemployment remains high, and Social Security faces serious fiscal challenges. It simply cannot afford to pay all of the future benefits it has promised. Elected leaders must realize that tax hikes are not the answer and that there are different ways to save both Social Security and the economy. Saving both requires our attention now, and as Heritage’s David John writes, “ [I]nstead of just blindly defending the current program, both Congress and the Obama Administration should propose comprehensive programs that permanently fix Social Security.”
Will your face appear in pictures at the next March for Life? We certainly hope that you will consider joining us each January for this important pro-life event. Hundreds of people from across the state make the annual march to remember the lives lost since the January 22, 1973 Supreme Court Roe v Wade decision that legalized abortion in our nation. Here’s what some past attendees have said about their experience at the March for Life:
“The most awesome part of the march is that moment when you get close enough to hear “Amazing Grace” coming from the steps of the capitol.”
“The thing that struck me most my first time was the number of youth and clergy that were marching with us.”
“I love to see the families, children in strollers and wagons, marching together for life.”
The March for Life is for everyone, those who are not able to walk the 13 blocks to the Capitol bring a lawn chair and watch the awesome sight of thousands of people marching peacefully and prayerfully to the sounds of Amazing Grace on bagpipes.”
“It always gives me chills and brings tears to my eyes to see the huge crowd peacefully remembering the lives that have been lost to abortion.”
_______________________
A Ronald Reagan radio address from 1975 addresses the topics of abortion and adoption. This comes from a collection of audio commentaries titled “Reagan in His Own Voice.”
I just wanted to share with you one of the finest prolife papers I have ever read, and it is by President Ronald Wilson Reagan.
I have a son named Wilson Daniel Hatcher and he is named after two of the most respected men I have ever read about : Daniel from the Old Testament and Ronald Wilson Reagan. I have studied that book of Daniel for years and have come to respect that author who was a saint who worked in two pagan governments but he never compromised. My favorite record was the album “No Compromise” by Keith Green and on the cover was a picture from the Book of Daniel.
One of the thrills of my life was getting to hear President Reagan speak in the beginning of November of 1984 at the State House Convention Center in Little Rock. Immediately after that program I was standing outside on Markham with my girlfriend Jill Sawyer (now wife of 25 years) and we were alone on a corner and President was driven by and he waved at us and we waved back.
My former pastor from Memphis, Adrian Rogers, got the opportunity to visit with President Ronald Reagan on several occasions.
Take time to read this below and comment below and let me know what you thought of his words.
EDITOR’S NOTE: While president, Ronald Reagan penned this article for The Human Life Review, unsolicited. It ran in the Review‘s Spring 1983, issue and is reprinted here with permission.
The 10th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade. Our nationwide policy of abortion-on-demand through all nine months of pregnancy was neither voted for by our people nor enacted by our legislators — not a single state had such unrestricted abortion before the Supreme Court decreed it to be national policy in 1973 is a good time for us to pause and reflect. But the consequences of this judicial decision are now obvious: since 1973, more than 15 million unborn children have had their lives snuffed out by legalized abortions. That is over ten times the number of Americans lost in all our nation’s wars.
Make no mistake, abortion-on-demand is not a right granted by the Constitution. No serious scholar, including one disposed to agree with the Court’s result, has argued that the framers of the Constitution intended to create such a right. Shortly after the Roe v. Wade decision, Professor John Hart Ely, now Dean of Stanford Law School, wrote that the opinion “is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be.” Nowhere do the plain words of the Constitution even hint at a “right” so sweeping as to permit abortion up to the time the child is ready to be born. Yet that is what the Court ruled.
As an act of “raw judicial power” (to use Justice White’s biting phrase), the decision by the seven-man majority inRoev. Wade has so far been made to stick. But the Court’s decision has by no means settled the debate. Instead,Roe v. Wadehas become a continuing prod to the conscience of the nation.
Abortion concerns not just the unborn child, it concerns every one of us. The English poet, John Donne, wrote: “. . . any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”
We cannot diminish the value of one category of human life — the unborn — without diminishing the value of all human life. We saw tragic proof of this truism last year when the Indiana courts allowed the starvation death of “Baby Doe” in Bloomington because the child had Down’s Syndrome.
Many of our fellow citizens grieve over the loss of life that has followed Roe v. Wade. Margaret Heckler, soon after being nominated to head the largest department of our government, Health and Human Services, told an audience that she believed abortion to be the greatest moral crisis facing our country today. And the revered Mother Teresa, who works in the streets of Calcutta ministering to dying people in her world-famous mission of mercy, has said that “the greatest misery of our time is the generalized abortion of children.”
Over the first two years of my Administration I have closely followed and assisted efforts in Congress to reverse the tide of abortion — efforts of Congressmen, Senators and citizens responding to an urgent moral crisis. Regrettably, I have also seen the massive efforts of those who, under the banner of “freedom of choice,” have so far blocked every effort to reverse nationwide abortion-on-demand.
Despite the formidable obstacles before us, we must not lose heart. This is not the first time our country has been divided by a Supreme Court decision that denied the value of certain human lives. The Dred Scott decision of 1857 was not overturned in a day, or a year, or even a decade. At first, only a minority of Americans recognized and deplored the moral crisis brought about by denying the full humanity of our black brothers and sisters; but that minority persisted in their vision and finally prevailed. They did it by appealing to the hearts and minds of their countrymen, to the truth of human dignity under God. From their example, we know that respect for the sacred value of human life is too deeply engrained in the hearts of our people to remain forever suppressed. But the great majority of the American people have not yet made their voices heard, and we cannot expect them to — any more than the public voice arose against slavery — until the issue is clearly framed and presented.
What, then, is the real issue? I have often said that when we talk about abortion, we are talking about two lives — the life of the mother and the life of the unborn child. Why else do we call a pregnant woman a mother?I have also said that anyone who doesn’t feel sure whether we are talking about a second human life should clearly give life the benefit of the doubt. If you don’t know whether a body is alive or dead, you would never bury it. I think this consideration itself should be enough for all of us to insist on protecting the unborn.
________________________________________________
I remember when President Carter and candidate Reagan debated in 1980 and the subject of abortion came up. Reagan said that if you were on a dusty area and you found someone laying down would you bury him without knowing for sure if he is alive or not? It is the same with the case of abortion.
Americans are blessed to have inherited a constitutional republic. If we are to keep it, we must vigilantly preserve the Constitution upon which it stands. As 2011 draws to a close, we made a list (and checked it twice!) of the year’s most important constitutional trends.
Nice: Constitutional Challenge to Obamacare
While the nullification efforts were roundly defeated, conservatives did mount a very successful constitutional challenge to Obamacare. Several states passed a Health Care Freedom Actdesigned to provoke a legal challenge to Obamacare. A majority of states and several individuals then brought lawsuits against Obamacare. Appellate courts upheld some cases and struck down others. Most significantly, the U.S. Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a suit brought by 26 states and the National Federation of Independent Business and declared the individual mandate unconstitutional. On November 14th, the Supreme Court announced that it would rule on the 11th Circuit Court’s decision in June 2012.
Naughty: Progressives Run Wild
2011 was above all a year of unbridled Progressivism. Ostensibly organized to protest crony capitalism, the Occupy Wall Street movement quickly devolved into unruly factions seeking redistributive government programs. In stark contrast to the Tea Party’s peaceful support of the Constitution, the occupiers blatantly disregarded property rights and the rule of law and denounced America’s representative government. Such prominent progressives as Peter Orzag and North Carolina’s Governor Bev Purdue suggested that America needs “less democracy” and more centralized administration. In his seminal speech in Osawatomie, Obama drew upon populist rhetoric to advocate a thoroughly progressive vision of government where bureaucratic experts enforce political and economic “fairness” rather than letting the American people govern themselves.
The massive growth of central government that started after the depression has continued ever since. If anything, it has even speeded up in recent years. Each year there are more buildings in Washington occupied by more bureaucrats administering more laws. The Great Depression persuaded the public that private enterprise was a fundamentally unstable system. That the depression represented a failure of free market capitalism, that the government had to step in to perform the essential function of stabilizing the economy, of providing security for its citizens. The widespread acceptance of these views, sparked the enormous growth in the power of government that has occurred in the decade since and that is still going on. We now know as many economists knew then that the truth about the depression was very different. The depression was produced or at the very least, made far worse by perverse monetary policies followed by the U.S. authorities.
Far from being a failure of free market capitalism, the depression was a failure of government. Unfortunately, that failure did not end with The Great Depression. Ever since, government has been attempting to fine tune the economy. In practice, just as during the depression, far from promoting stability, the government has itself, been the major single source of instability.
DISCUSSION
Participants: Robert McKenzie, Moderator; Milton Friedman; Robert Lekachman, Professor of Economics, City University, New York; Nicholas Von Hoffman, Syndicated Columnist; Peter Temin, Professor of Economics, MIT; Peter Jay, British Ambassador to the United States, 1977_1979
MCKENZIE: And now we join the invited guests here at the University of Chicago, as they discuss Friedman’s interpretation of those events and their implications for today.
LEKACHMAN: The 1929 crash, the succeeding calamities, were not the first of their kind. Capitalism has been subject to severe depressions since the beginning of the industrial revolution. This was the first time, however, government tried to intervene seriously. It did it very badly. The lesson I would draw is a very simple one: Government is unavoidable; the expectations of the public are proper; government ought to do better oddly enough the government did do better until very, very recently. Until, I would say, October 1973, even, government did reasonably well in fulfilling the expectations of the public. I’m an unrepentant proponent of government intervention, intelligent government intervention. But I would describe much of the intervention which has followed the great 1929 crash as quite intelligent.
MCKENZIE: Let’s take a further look, though, at this argument that just as during the depression, far from promoting stability, the government has itself been the major single source of instability.
VON HOFFMAN: I_I don’t think there is any stability this side of the graveyard. I mean, I think __ I don’t think it matters what system you’re working under, you are not going to __ you are not going to have a level and hold it under any system with living human beings.
TEMIN: Governments are larger now and therefore more of a source of an influence for good and for bad. And I think like Mr. Von Hoffman that you can’t get perfect stability, given that you’re going to have governments, given that there are legitimate functions of governments, there are also risks in having the government be as active as it is.
MCKENZIE: Peter Jay.
JAY: I think that government is a god that has failed. I think that we have too much of it and need less of it. I think it has failed to prevent both the modern forms of economic instability and the prewar ones. I do not, however, think that government is the original or primary source of that instability, and I do not think that simply getting rid of the government, or greatly reducing it, which I’m in favor of, will, by itself, remove the instability.
LEKACHMAN: I would put it this way: There was __ there was a great economist, with a suitably esoteric doctrine, which could nevertheless be translated as Dr. Friedman did in the film, into simple English, at the same time as there was the widespread hardship of The Great Depression and the natural yearning of human beings not to repeat anything like it. So you have a coincidence of an appropriate theory, with an appropriate public sentiment, and I suppose the symbol in the United States was the passage of 1946 of the Employment Act of that year. Which, it was a weak measure, but it was nevertheless a public declaration of an obligation of government to do something about employment, and economic prosperity, and a good thing, too.
MCKENZIE: Now that’s the __ really the crux of the matter. Do you agree it was a good thing too, that obligation was accepted by government at that stage?
JAY: I think it’s very important here to distinguish two completely different issues. There is the rather narrow issue as to whether Keynes was right or wrong in believing that you could stabilize the economy with regard to really one essential variable _ unemployment _ by a certain technique which he talked about. We may now think that he was wrong, but that’s a quite separate issue from the broad political philosophical issue associated with socialism, associated with social democrats, and many other so-called left wing political thinkers, that the duty of government, so far as it can, is to concern itself not only with defense and law and order and the traditional things, but also with the social welfare and the economic welfare of a society. Now that’s a broad philosophical __
MCKENZIE: Is that a disaster, as Milton seemed to be implying, or was it a good and helpful, useful thing to happen?
JAY: Well, that is one of the great __ perhaps the greatest of all debates in political philosophy, as to whether or not it is right or is not right to believe that a society, collectively, should concern itself with these things and has the right, having concerned itself, through law and through government and in other ways, to move to try to correct these things.
VON HOFFMAN: Well I just __ it seems to me that Americans have believed that for the last century. I mean William McKinley ran on the slogan of a full dinner pail, so that the notion that this is a government responsibility for prosperity dates from the 1930’s I think is erroneous. What I wonder about after having seen that film is this: We have in 1929 __ we have the man who could have saved it dead two years and in 1946 we’ve got the man who might have saved it dying. So what I have to ask is: Are we doomed to find out the right answer only too late? Is it possible that our __
TEMIN: Or should we just look for somebody who’s recently died.
VON HOFFMAN: Exactly. Rummage the morgues. (Laughter)
MCKENZIE: Well, you asked the question __
FRIEDMAN: No, and I think the question is a very different one. And it goes to much of the discussion to this point. Everybody looks for the right man. You say, “Government __
VON HOFFMAN: You brought’em up.
FRIEDMAN: Those men at that time. Quite right. But a system which depends on the right man is a bad system. The Federal Reserve was a bad system because it depended on the right man working it. The idea of demand management, of the kind of thing we’re talking about where Keynes’ death mattered, was a bad system because it depended on a particular man working it. The notion that the problem that Bob Lekachman brought up, that the problem is not the government interferes, but it does it unintelligently, is again a demand for the right man, the man on the white horse who will know what to do. My whole view is very different. It is that it’s the system that’s wrong, and that we’ve got to have a system that the right way to accomplish these objectives is to have a system which doesn’t depend on whether you happen to have the right man pushing the buttons at the right time.
TEMIN: The problem is somebody has to __
FRIEDMAN: Which relies on the __ on establishing a framework within which an invisible hand, within which the activities of people all over are jointly to produce the kind of result. It won’t produce perfect stability; but it’ll produce a far higher degree of stability, a far greater level of freedom, and a far greater level of prosperity than the kind of thing we’ve had with these governmental interventions.
TEMIN: Somebody still has to design the system. You can’t take the people out of it entirely.
FRIEDMAN: Of course.
TEMIN: Unless you’re in the grave as it says.
FRIEDMAN: Of course, but the __ that doesn’t __
TEMIN: But the question is __ I mean it’s said that generals always fight the last war. How do we know that the system won’t fight the last war? We probably won’t have another depression exactly like 1929 to ’33.
MCKENZIE: But, but __
TEMIN: But that doesn’t say we won’t have another depression or another stagflation or another crisis of some other source.
MCKENZIE: But is this process reversible? Because you argued that the public, having been appalled by The Great Depression, in effect demanded of government that they accept responsibility for wellbeing of the economy, for management of the society and so on. Now, that expectation having been raised, can it be reversed?
VON HOFFMAN: Let me answer a question you didn’t ask and say that it seems to me that what we’re getting here is the question of sort of social astrophysics. And that is, do we have an unseen hand, or are we on the war star where we are trying to design a computer that is going to take care of the navigation of this thing. In other words, it seems to me that’s our central question. Is there a mechanism that you can put right in the center of the spaceship that will operate regardless of who is the captain on the quarterdeck at any one moment in time? I don’t think that’s an economic question. I think that’s a question that goes to religion.
When the Republicans took over Congress in 1994 they were able to work with President Clinton and get Welfare reform passed which Clinton signed. However, since President Obama got in office he has been trying to stimulate the economy and he abandoned welfare reform.
By Doug Mills, APPresident Ronald Reagan after delivering a speech on television in this 1987 photo.
Editor’s note: This article was co-authored by Susan A. Carleson and Robert Knight.
We knew things weren’t good, but nearly one seventh of all Americans on food stamps? Forty-three million people?
That’s the news this week from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which noted that only 30 million were on food stamps as recently as 2008. For Big Government fans, this news should trigger a high five. But wait – many of those high fivers are lamenting the “epidemic of obesity” among the poor. Remember, liberalism need not be consistent or effective; it just has to be caring.
For the average American this food stamp spike should be a wake up call. It exposes two things: One, Obamanomics’ massive government spending is not improving the economy; and, two, poorly designed welfare programs create ever more dependency. Food stamps and other welfare programs were meant to be a safety net for people down on their luck, not a way of life passed from one generation to the next.
Over the years, the federal government has grown exponentially. The notable exception occurred in 1996 with the passage of welfare reform, which marked the first and only repeal of a Great Society entitlement program, Aid to Families with Dependent Children.
That reform, which reversed the incentives for states to increase their welfare rolls, was an unqualified success by every measure. Caseloads dropped by more than two-thirds – from a record 5 million families in 1994 to just 1.6 million families in 2009. Recipients left welfare in droves — most of them to work — and earnings rose as child poverty fell.
But, following the 2008 election, liberals in Congress and the White House began to dismantle this historic achievement. In the first “stimulus bill” they undermined the 1996 reform, made it easier for states to increase their welfare caseloads without having to meet federal work requirements, and added a host of new welfare programs. These destructive policies must be reversed.
Ronald Reagan was the first modern president to truly appreciate the wisdom of America’s founders about the virtues of limited government. He understood the dynamics of spending and the inherent danger of overburdening taxpayers and free markets.
In the early 1970s, when California was headed toward bankruptcy because of its profligate welfare spending, then-Gov. Reagan tapped Robert B. Carleson to design and implement a plan to salvage the state’s budget. And it worked. Welfare rolls plummeted and the state’s most needy received a long-delayed benefit increase. It was a true American success story.
The ultimate triumph of these efforts was the historic welfare reform of 1996, which freed millions of Americans from the narcotic of dependency. While Bill Clinton deserves credit for ultimately signing this landmark legislation, it was in fact the product of 30 years of Ronald Reagan’s dream and Bob Carleson’s tenacity.
Ronald Reagan was a man of strong beliefs, and he surrounded himself with policy experts who understood big bureaucracy and who knew how to roll back its overreach through common sense approaches. Sadly, people with those attitudes and know-how have not been in positions of power for many years. And the country has drifted, some would say lurched, leftward in its acceptance of big government.
But as we all saw last November, complacency reached its limit. Americans now hunger for a return to sensible policies that instill individual responsibility, reduce government and taxes, increase prosperity and create real – not make-work – jobs.
A new organization, the Carleson Center for Public Policy (CCPP), has been formed to assist this effort by serving as a proxy for “What Reagan would do.” Comprised exclusively of men and women who served under Ronald Reagan and who understand what works, the Center (www.theccpp.org) will offer public policy officials guidance and advice on welfare and entitlement reform.
For a detailed look at the 25-year fight that truly reformed welfare, see Bob Carleson’s book Government Is the Problem: Memoirs of Ronald Reagan’s Welfare Reformer (American Civil Rights Union, 2010) www.governmentistheproblem.us.
As we celebrate Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday on February 6, it is appropriate to recall his words:
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”
This is America. We can do better than offer our children more and more food stamps.
Robert Knight
Robert Knight is an author, columnist and frequent contributor to Townhall.
WLS 890 – Don Wade & Roma’s interview with Jan Schakowsky
The Daily Hatch 