It appears that only a fraction of the spending proposed in a new $3 trillion to $4 trillion bill would go toward an already too-expansive definition of infrastructure. Pictured: Engineers discuss the progress of an infrastructure construction project. (Photo: Sornranison Prakittrakoon/ Moment/Getty Images)
The media were flooded Monday with news that the Biden administration is working on a colossal new $3 trillion to $4 trillion spending plan.
While full details are not available yet, the plan appears to be another left-wing grab bag of big-government proposals. Rather than stimulating the economy, it would stimulate bigger government while funneling unprecedented amounts of power and money through the hands of politicians in Washington.
All this comes on the heels of President Joe Biden signing into law on March 11 a badly flawed $1.9 trillion legislative package that was originally marketed as a COVID-19 response, but which was more focused on left-wing pet causes, such as bailouts for union pension plans and unnecessary handouts for state governments.
Just a day later, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., released a statement calling for bipartisan work on legislation that would focus on infrastructure. While there were good reasons to question how beneficial or “bipartisan” such legislation would be, there was at least a chance of finding some across-the-aisle support.
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But the potential for bipartisanship was quickly scuttled by news of the latest multitrillion-dollar plan.
It would be bad enough if the latest plan was just a big-spending infrastructure package. However, it appears that only a fraction of the new spending would go toward an already too-expansive definition of infrastructure.
Instead, most of the new spending and tax subsidies would go toward expanding the welfare state, including “free” tuition for community colleges, “free” child care, and other handouts that lack right-of-center support.
This would likely be the largest expansion of the federal government since the “Great Society” of the 1960s, even eclipsing Obamacare in scope.
Reports indicate that Democrats might attempt to split the plan into two bills—one focused on social spending that passes narrowly along party lines, the other focused on actual infrastructure aimed at winning bipartisan support.
However, it’s clear that the $3 trillion-plus total price tag is already souring prospects for bipartisan infrastructure legislation.
House Republicans boycotted the annual Ways and Means Committee “Member’s Day” hearing on Tuesday in the wake of news reports on the plan, since they indicated that Democrats have already made up their minds to pursue as much spending as possible through the legislative procedure known as reconciliation.
Coincidentally, two respected nonpartisan groups released reports this week that show why Biden and Pelosi should pause their aggressive agenda.
First, the Congressional Budget Office published a paper demonstrating what would happen if a sustained increase in federal spending were coupled with big tax increases to pay for the spending.
While the analysis points to different long-term effects from different types of taxes, any tax-and-spend approach would lead to reductions in economic growth and personal income that are larger than the size of the tax hikes.
For example, the analysis found that having 10% more federal government would mean a 12% to 19% reduction in personal consumption.
And that’s a conservative estimate. Most estimates show tax hikes shrink the economy by two to three times more than the revenues they raise.
That doesn’t mean Congress could escape the consequences of a continued spending spree by simply adding to the national debt. The CBO paper cautions that that would not only impose significant costs and divert resources away from the private sector, but it also would be unsustainable and increase the risk of a devastating financial crisis.
Along the same lines, the Government Accountability Office released a sobering reporton the nation’s poor financial health.
Now that Congress has passed a combined total of $6 trillion in legislation in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic (more than $48,000 per household), it must quickly address the unsustainable growth of major benefit programs, such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
Even before the pandemic struck, these programs were on a path to bankruptcy. Addressing these shortfalls in a way that is fair to both current retirees and future generations who will have to foot the bill is one of the greatest policy challenges facing the nation.
Unfortunately, Washington is exacerbating the problem by adding excessively to the national debt and potentially stunting economic growth with higher taxes.
While the Biden administration has repeatedly claimed that it will only seek to raise taxes on the wealthy, a government of the size that it’s seeking would require amounts of money that can only be generated through steep across-the-board tax increases on middle-class Americans.
Regardless of whether those taxes are levied tomorrow or in a few years, they would be an inevitable part of expanding the size and scope of the federal government.
Rather than continuing down the path of centralized power and socialism, lawmakers should recognize the costs associated with endless federal spending and chart a course toward financial responsibility and prosperity.
If they don’t, it will be the public’s duty to hold them accountable.
Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we will consider publishing your remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature.
President Biden c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President,
Please explain to me if you ever do plan to balance the budget while you are President? I have written these things below about you and I really do think that you don’t want to cut spending in order to balance the budget. It seems you ever are daring the Congress to stop you from spending more.
“The credit of the United States ‘is not a bargaining chip,’ Obama said on 1-14-13. However, President Obama keeps getting our country’s credit rating downgraded as he raises the debt ceiling higher and higher!!!!
Washington Could Learn a Lot from a Drug Addict
Just spend more, don’t know how to cut!!! Really!!! That is not living in the real world is it?
Making more dependent on government is not the way to go!!
Why is our government in over 16 trillion dollars in debt? There are many reasons for this but the biggest reason is people say “Let’s spend someone else’s money to solve our problems.” Liberals like Max Brantley have talked this way for years. Brantley will say that conservatives are being harsh when they don’t want the government out encouraging people to be dependent on the government. The Obama adminstration has even promoted a plan for young people to follow like Julia the Moocher.
Imagine standing a baby carrot up next to the 25-story Stephens building in Little Rock. That gives you a picture of the impact on the national debt that federal spending in Arkansas on Medicaid expansion would have, while here at home expansion would give coverage to more than 200,000 of our neediest citizens, create jobs, and save money for the state.
Here’s the thing: while more than a billion dollars a year in federal spending would represent a big-time stimulus for Arkansas, it’s not even a drop in the bucket when it comes to the national debt.
Currently, the national debt is around $16.4 trillion. In fiscal year 2015, the federal government would spend somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.2 billion to fund Medicaid expansion in Arkansas if we say yes. That’s about 1/13,700th of the debt.
It’s hard to get a handle on numbers that big, so to put that in perspective, let’s get back to the baby carrot. Imagine that the height of the Stephens building (365 feet) is the $16 trillion national debt. That $1.2 billion would be the length of a ladybug. Of course, we’re not just talking about one year if we expand. Between now and 2021, the federal government projects to contribute around $10 billion. The federal debt is projected to be around $25 trillion by then, so we’re talking about 1/2,500th of the debt. Compared to the Stephens building? That’s a baby carrot.
______________
Here is how it will all end if everyone feels they should be allowed to have their “baby carrot.”
How sad it is that liberals just don’t get this reality.
While living in Europe in the 1760s, Franklin observed: “in different countries … the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.”
Alexander Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee(15 October 1747 – 5 January 1813) was a Scottish lawyer, writer, and professor. Tytler was also a historian, and he noted, “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy.”
[Jefferson affirms that the main purpose of society is to enable human beings to keep the fruits of their labor.— TGW]
To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, “the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry, and the fruits acquired by it.” If the overgrown wealth of an individual be deemed dangerous to the State, the best corrective is the law of equal inheritance to all in equal degree; and the better, as this enforces a law of nature, while extra taxation violates it.
[From Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Albert E. Bergh (Washington: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904), 14:466.]
_______
Jefferson pointed out that to take from the rich and give to the poor through government is just wrong. Franklin knew the poor would have a better path upward without government welfare coming their way. Milton Friedman’s negative income tax is the best method for doing that and by taking away all welfare programs and letting them go to the churches for charity.
_____________
_________
Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733
We got to act fast and get off this path of socialism. Morning Bell: Welfare Spending Shattering All-Time Highs Robert Rector and Amy Payne October 18, 2012 at 9:03 am It’s been a pretty big year for welfare—and a new report shows welfare is bigger than ever. The Obama Administration turned a giant spotlight […]
We need to cut Food Stamp program and not extend it. However, it seems that people tell the taxpayers back home they are going to Washington and cut government spending but once they get up there they just fall in line with everyone else that keeps spending our money. I am glad that at least […]
Government Must Cut Spending Uploaded by HeritageFoundation on Dec 2, 2010 The government can cut roughly $343 billion from the federal budget and they can do so immediately. __________ Liberals argue that the poor need more welfare programs, but I have always argued that these programs enslave the poor to the government. Food Stamps Growth […]
Milton Friedman – The Negative Income Tax Published on May 11, 2012 by LibertyPen In this 1968 interview, Milton Friedman explained the negative income tax, a proposal that at minimum would save taxpayers the 72 percent of our current welfare budget spent on administration. http://www.LibertyPen.com Source: Firing Line with William F Buckley Jr. ________________ Milton […]
Dan Mitchell Commenting on Obama’s Failure to Propose a Fiscal Plan Published on Aug 16, 2012 by danmitchellcato No description available. ___________ After the Welfare State Posted by David Boaz Cato senior fellow Tom G. Palmer, who is lecturing about freedom in Slovenia and Tbilisi this week, asked me to post this announcement of his […]
Is President Obama gutting the welfare reform that Bill Clinton signed into law? Morning Bell: Obama Denies Gutting Welfare Reform Amy Payne August 8, 2012 at 9:15 am The Obama Administration came out swinging against its critics on welfare reform yesterday, with Press Secretary Jay Carney saying the charge that the Administration gutted the successful […]
Thomas Sowell – Welfare Welfare reform was working so good. Why did we have to abandon it? Look at this article from 2003. The Continuing Good News About Welfare Reform By Robert Rector and Patrick Fagan, Ph.D. February 6, 2003 Six years ago, President Bill Clinton signed legislation overhauling part of the nation’s welfare system. […]
Uploaded by ForaTv on May 29, 2009 Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2009/05/18/James_Bartholomew_The_Welfare_State_Were_In Author James Bartholomew argues that welfare benefits actually increase government handouts by ‘ruining’ ambition. He compares welfare to a humane mousetrap. —– Welfare reform was working so good. Why did we have to abandon it? Look at this article from 2003. In the controversial […]
Thomas Sowell If the welfare reform law was successful then why change it? Wasn’t Bill Clinton the president that signed into law? Obama Guts Welfare Reform Robert Rector and Kiki Bradley July 12, 2012 at 4:10 pm Today, the Obama Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released an official policy directive rewriting the welfare […]
I have been writing President Obama letters and have not received a personal response yet. (He reads 10 letters a day personally and responds to each of them.) However, I did receive a form letter in the form of an email on July 10, 2012. I don’t know which letter of mine generated this response so I have […]
let us think of the sex relationship. What is man’s attitude towards the girl? It is possible, and common in the modern setting, to have a “playboy” attitude, or rather a “plaything” attitude, where the “play- mate” becomes the “plaything.” Here, the girl is no more than a sex object.
But what is the Christian view? Somebody may offer at this point the rather romantic no- tion, “You shouldn’t look for any pleasure for yourself; you should just look for the other per- son’s pleasure.” But that is not what the Bible says. We are to love our neighbor as ourselves. We have a right to pleasure, too. But what we do not have a right to do is to forget that the girl is a person and not an animal, or a plant, or a machine. We have the right to have our plea- sure in a sexual relationship, but we have no right whatsoever to exploit a partner as a sex object.
There should be a conscious limitation upon our pleasure. We impose a limit—a self-imposed limit—in order to treat the wife fairly as a per- son. So although a husband could do more, he does not do everything he could do, because he must treat her also as a person and not just as a thing with no value. And if he does so treat her, eventually he loses, because love is gone, and all that is left is just a mechanical, chemical sexuality; humanity is lost as he treats her as less than human. Eventually not only her humanity is diminished, but his as well. In con- trast, if he does less than he could do, even- tually he has more, for he has a human rela- tionship; he has love and not just a physical act. It is like the principle of the boomerang—it can come full circle and destroy the destroyer.
rock band led by Jonathan Richman in the 1970s and 1980s. The original band existed from 1970 to 1974 but their recordings were not released until 1976 or later. It featured Richman and bassist Ernie Brooks with drummer David Robinson (later of The Cars) and keyboardist Jerry Harrison (later of Talking Heads). The sound of the band owed a great deal to the influence of the Velvet Underground, and is now sometimes classed as “proto-punk“. It pointed the way towards much of the punk rock, new wave, alternative and indie rockmusic of later decades. Their only album, the eponymous The Modern Lovers, contained idiosyncratic songs about dating awkwardness, growing up in Massachusetts, and love of life and the USA.
Later, between 1976 and 1988, Richman used the name Modern Lovers for a variety of backing bands, always billed as “Jonathan Richman and The Modern Lovers”. These bands were quieter and featured more low-key, often near-childlike songs as Richman drew on folk-rock and other genres. Of Richman’s original bandmates, only Robinson was part of any of the other Modern Lovers incarnations.
Richman grew up in Natick, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston, and began playing guitar and writing songs in his mid teens, first performing solo in public in 1967.[1] He became enamored of the Velvet Underground while he was still in high school, and after graduating in 1969, he moved to New York City where he became personally acquainted with the band and on one occasion opened the bill for them. Richman spent a couple of weeks sleeping on Velvets’ manager Steve Sesnick‘s sofa before moving into the Hotel Albert, a residence known for its poor conditions.[2]
After nine months in New York, and a trip to Europe and Israel, Richman moved back to his native Boston. With his childhood friend and neighbor, guitarist John Felice, he organized a band modeled after the Velvets. They quickly recruited drummer David Robinson and bass player Rolfe Anderson, and christened themselves “The Modern Lovers”. They played their first date, supporting Andy Paley’s band the Sidewinders, in September 1970, barely a month after Richman’s return. By this time their setlist already included such noted Richman songs as “Roadrunner“, “She Cracked” and “Hospital”. Richman’s unique character was immediately apparent; he wore short hair and often performed wearing a jacket and tie, and frequently improvised new lyrics and monologues.[2]
In early 1971 Anderson and Felice departed; they were replaced by Harvard students bassist Ernie Brooks, and keyboardistJerry Harrison, completing the classic lineup of the Modern Lovers. This new configuration became very popular in the Boston area, and by the fall of 1971, enthusiastic word-of-mouth led to the Modern Lovers’ first exposure to a major label when Stuart Love of Warner Bros. Records contacted them and organized the band’s first multi-track session at Intermedia Studio in Boston. The demo produced from this session, and the group’s live performances, generated more attention from the industry, including rave reviews from critic Lillian Roxon, and soon A&M Records was interested in the band as well.
In April 1972, the Modern Lovers traveled to Los Angeles where they held two demo sessions: the first was produced by the Velvet Underground’s John Cale for Warner Bros. while the second was produced by Allan Mason for A&M. These sessions were later used on the band’s debut album. While in California the band also performed live, and one gig at the Long Branch Saloon in Berkeleywas later issued as a live album. Producer Kim Fowley courted the band, traveling to Boston to produce some poor-quality demos in June 1972. Felice rejoined the group for a few months after his graduation, and the band moved together to live in Cohasset, Massachusetts.
The Modern Lovers continued to be a popular live attraction, and on New Year’s Eve 1972 supported the New York Dolls at the Mercer Arts Center on a bill which also included Suicide and Wayne County. Early in 1973 they were finally signed by Warner Brothers. However, before returning to the studio in Los Angeles to work with Cale, the group accepted an offer to play a residency at the Inverurie Hotel in Bermuda. While there, Richman heard and became strongly influenced by the laid-back style of the local musicians, as documented in his later song “Monologue About Bermuda”. There were also growing personality clashes among band members.[2]
Although on the band’s return Richman agreed to record his earlier songs, he was anxious to move in a different musical direction. He wanted to scrap all of the tracks they had recorded and start over with a mellower, more lyrical sound. The rest of the band, while not opposed to such a shift later, insisted that they record as they sounded now. However, the sessions with Cale in September 1973 also coincided with the death of their friend Gram Parsons (a former Harvard student, like Harrison and Brooks), and produced no usable recordings.[1][2] The record company then recruited Kim Fowley to produce more sessions with the band, this time at Gold Star Studios, with better results. Recordings from these sessions with Fowley were later released in 1981 on an album titled The Original Modern Lovers (reissued on CD by Bomp Records in 2000).
Following the failure to complete a debut album, Warner Brothers withdrew their support for The Modern Lovers, and Robinson left the band. They continued to perform live for a few months with new drummer Bob Turner, but Richman was increasingly unwilling to perform his old (although still unreleased) songs such as “Roadrunner”, and after a final disagreement between him and Harrison over musical style the band split up in February 1974.[2]
Richman continued recording on his own, eventually moving to California in 1975 to begin working with Beserkley Records whose boss Matthew King Kaufman had met Richman when he worked with A&M. While Richman never returned to the Velvets-inspired sound of the original Modern Lovers, the demo recordings made with that group eventually surfaced in various formats. The first of these releases came in 1976 when Beserkley compiled a posthumous LP from the first two demo sessions produced by Cale and Mason; issued on Beserkley’s Home of the Hits subsidiary, the album was simply titled The Modern Loversand included celebrated tracks such as “Roadrunner”, “She Cracked”, and “Pablo Picasso“.
Richman did not recognize this compilation as his “first album,” preferring to recognize his debut as 1976’s Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers, an album pursuing the lighter, softer direction he had in mind with a completely different band (the two collections were released within months of each other). However, The Modern Lovers was given an enthusiastic critical reception, with critic Ira Robbins hailing it as “one of the truly great art rock albums of all time”, and it influenced numerous aspiring punk rock musicians on both sides of the Atlantic, including the Sex Pistols (who covered “Roadrunner” on The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle).
Jonathan Richman and The Modern Lovers, 1976-1988Edit
In early 1976, Richman put together a new version of The Modern Lovers, with Leroy Radcliffe (guitar), Greg ‘Curly’ Keranen (bass) and the returning David Robinson (drums). Keranen had previously played with The Rubinoos, and Radcliffe with Woody’s Truckstop. They recorded the album Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers (1976), but Robinson again left after Richman persisted in reducing the size and volume of his drum kit, and was replaced by D. Sharpe. This band recorded the album Rock ‘N’ Roll with The Modern Lovers (1977) and toured until Keranen left to go to college and was replaced by Asa Brebner, who played on the albums The Modern Lovers Live (1978) and Back in Your Life (1979).[2] David “D.” Sharpe died in 1987, aged 39.[3]
In 1980 Richman again formed a new Modern Lovers, with Keranen, drummer Michael Guardabascio and backing singers Ellie Marshall and Beth Harrington. They recorded the album Jonathan Sings! in 1981/82, but it was not released until 1983. The group toured to support the album, often regarded as one of Richman’s best,[4] but split up after Keranen again left in 1984.
The final version of The Modern Lovers, with Andy Paley, Brennan Totten and (initially) Asa Brebner again, toured and recorded between 1985 and 1988. Richman finally retired The Modern Lovers name after the album Modern Lovers 88.
Richman continues to perform, often solo and preferring acoustic instruments, and currently has no plans to undertake another group like his original band. A tribute album consisting primarily of Modern Lovers songs, If I Were a Richman: a Tribute to the Music of Jonathan Richman, was released by Wampus Multimediain 2001. Asa Brebner died in 2019, aged 65.[5]
The Modern Lovers band was influential on the then-burgeoning punk rock and later new waveand indie musical styles; as viewed in the feature-length 2015 documentary Danny Says.
Seminal punk group the Sex Pistols covered “Roadrunner” on The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle. Joan Jett sang “Roadrunner” on her cover album, The Hit List. In 2009 Titus Andronicus covered “Roadrunner” on its EP The Innocents Abroad – Live in London 23/02/09; this recording was subsequently included on the fan compilation Feats of Strength. Additional covers of “Roadrunner” include those by Wire and Richman’s labelmates The Greg Kihn Band.
The Modern Lovers Punk Band was obviously obsessed with Picasso and his ability to have many sexual conquests:
Well some people try to pick up girls
And get called a$$&@les
This never happened to Pablo Picasso
He could walk down your street And girls could not resist his stare and
So Pablo Picasso was never called an a$$&@le
Well the girls would turn the color
Of the avocado when he would drive
Down their street in his El Dorado
He could walk down your street
And girls could not resist his stare
Pablo Picasso never got called an a$$&@le
Not like you
Alright
Well he was only 5’3″
But girls could not resist his stare
Pablo Picasso never got called an a$$&@le
Not in New York
Oh well be not schmuck, be not obnoxious,
Be not bellbottom bummer or a$$&@le
Remember the story of Pablo Picasso
He could walk down your street
And girls could not resist his stare
Pablo Picasso was never called an a$$&@les
Alright this is it
—
__
I want to talk about what Solomon had to say concerning the search for satisfaction in life UNDER THE SUN (without God in the picture.) Probably his most disappointing discovery was that being a ladies man left him unsatisfied.
Ecclesiastes 2:8-10The Message (MSG)
I piled up silver and gold,
loot from kings and kingdoms.
I gathered a chorus of singers to entertain me with song,
and—most exquisite of all pleasures— voluptuous maidens for my bed.
9-10 Oh, how I prospered! I left all my predecessors in Jerusalem far behind, left them behind in the dust. What’s more, I kept a clear head through it all. Everything I wanted I took—I never said no to myself. I gave in to every impulse, held back nothing. I sucked the marrow of pleasure out of every task—my reward to myself for a hard day’s work!
1 Kings 11:1-3 English Standard Version (ESV)
11 Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, 2 from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, “You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.” Solomon clung to these in love. 3 He had 700 wives, who were princesses, and 300 concubines. And his wives turned away his heart.
Francis Schaeffer observed concerning Solomon, “You can not know woman but knowing 1000 women.”
King Solomon in Ecclesiastes 2:11 sums up his search for meaning in the area of the Sexual Revolution with these words, “…behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.”
__
In fact, the Book of Ecclesiastes shows that Solomon came to the conclusion that NOTHING in life gives true satisfaction without God including knowledge (1:16-18), LADIES and liquor (2:1-3, 8, 10, 11), and great building projects (2:4-6, 18-20). You can only find a lasting meaning to your life by looking above the sun and bring God back into the picture.
Solomon’s experiment was a search for meaning to life “under the sun.” Then in last few words in the Book of Ecclesiastes he looks above the sun and brings God back into the picture: “The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: Fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil.”
Francis Schaeffer noted:
I have lots of young people and older ones come to us from the ends of the earth. And as they come to us, they have gone to the end of this logically and they are not living in a romantic setting. They realize what the situation is. They can’t find any meaning to life. It’s the meaning to the black poetry. It’s the meaning of the black plays. It’s the meaning of all this. It’s the meaning of the words “punk rock.”
–
“They are the natural outcome of a change from a Christian World View to a Humanistic one…
The result is a relativistic value system. A lack of a final meaning to life — that’s first. Why does human life have any value at all, if that is all that reality is? Not only are you going to die individually, but the whole human race is going to die, someday. It may not take the falling of the atom bombs, but someday the world will grow too hot, too cold. That’s what we are told on this other final reality, and someday all you people not only will be individually dead, but the whole conscious life on this world will be dead, and nobody will see the birds fly. And there’s no meaning to life.
As you know, I don’t speak academically, shut off in some scholastic cubicle, as it were. I have lots of young people and older ones come to us from the ends of the earth. And as they come to us, they have gone to the end of this logically and they are not living in a romantic setting. They realize what the situation is. They can’t find any meaning to life. It’s the meaning to the black poetry. It’s the meaning of the black plays. It’s the meaning of all this. It’s the meaning of the words “punk rock.” And I must say, that on the basis of what they are being taught in school, that the final reality is only this material thing, they are not wrong. They’re right! On this other basis there is no meaning to life and not only is there no meaning to life, but there is no value system that is fixed, and we find that the law is based then only on a relativistic basis and that law becomes purely arbitrary.
—
OUTLINE OF ECCLESIATES BY SCHAEFFER
_______
William Lane Craig on Man’s predicament if God doesn’t exist
Read Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett. During this entire play two men carry on trivial conversation while waiting for a third man to arrive, who never does. Our lives are like that, Beckett is saying; we just kill time waiting—for what, we don’t know.
Thus, if there is no God, then life itself becomes meaningless. Man and the universe are without ultimate significance.
Francis Schaeffer looks at Nihilism of Solomon and the causes of it!!!
Notes on Ecclesiastes by Francis Schaeffer
Solomon is the author of Ecclesiastes and he is truly an universal man like Leonardo da Vinci.
Two men of the Renaissance stand above all others –Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci and it is in them that one can perhaps grasp a view of the ultimate conclusion of humanism for man. Michelangelo was unequaled as a sculptor in the Renaissance and arguably no one has ever matched his talents.
The other giant of the Renaissance period was Leonardo da Vinci – the perfect Renaissance Man, the man who could do almost anything and does it better than most anyone else. As an inventor, an engineer, an anatomist, an architect, an artist, a chemist, a mathematician, he was almost without equal. It was perhaps his mathematics that lead da Vinci to come to his understanding of the ultimate meaning of Humanism. Leonardo is generally accepted as the first modern mathematician. He not only knew mathematics abstractly but applied it in his Notebooks to all manner of engineering problems. He was one of the unique geniuses of history, and in his brilliance he perceived that beginning humanistically with mathematics one only had particulars. He understood that man beginning from himself would never be able to come to meaning on the basis of mathematics. And he knew that having only individual things, particulars, one never could come to universals or meaning and thus one only ends with mechanics. In this he saw ahead to where our generation has come: everything, including man, is the machine.
Leonardo da Vinci compares well to Solomon and they both were universal men searching for the meaning in life. Solomon was searching for a meaning in the midst of the details of life.His struggle was to find the meaning of life. Not just plans in life.Anybody can find plans in life. A child can fill up his time with plans of building tomorrow’s sand castle when today’s has been washed away. There is a difference between finding plans in life and purpose in life. Humanism since the Renaissance and onward has never found it and it has never found it since. Modern man has not found it and it has always got worse and darker in a very real way.
We have here the declaration of Solomon’s universality:
1 Kings 4:30-34
English Standard Version (ESV)
30 so that Solomon’s wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the people of the east and all the wisdom of Egypt.31 For he was wiser than all other men, wiser than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, Calcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol, and his fame was in all the surrounding nations.32 He also spoke 3,000 proverbs, and his songs were 1,005.33 He spoke of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of the wall. He spoke also of beasts, and of birds, and of reptiles, and of fish.34 And people of all nations came to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and from all the kings of the earth, who had heard of his wisdom.
_________________________
Here is the universal man and his genius. Solomon is the universal man with a empire at his disposal. Solomon had it all.
Ecclesiastes 1:3
English Standard Version (ESV)
3 What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?
Schaeffer noted that Solomon took a look at the meaning of life on the basis of human life standing alone between birth and death “under the sun.” This phrase UNDER THE SUN appears over and over in Ecclesiastes.
(Added by me:The Christian Scholar Ravi Zacharias noted, “The key to understanding the Book of Ecclesiastes is the term UNDER THE SUN — What that literally means is you lock God out of a closed system and you are left with only this world of Time plus Chance plus matter.” )
Man is caught in the cycle
Ecclesiastes 1:1-7
English Standard Version (ESV)
All Is Vanity
1 The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.
2 Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. 3 What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? 4 A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. 5 The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises. 6 The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north; around and around goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns. 7 All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again.
8 All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. 9 What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun. 10 Is there a thing of which it is said, “See, this is new”? It has been already in the ages before us.
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Solomon is showing a high degree of comprehension of evaporation and the results of it. Seeing also in reality nothing changes. There is change but always in a set framework and that is cycle. You can relate this to the concepts of modern man. Ecclesiastes is the only pessimistic book in the Bible and that is because of the place where Solomon limits himself. He limits himself to the question of human life, life under the sun between birth and death and the answers this would give.
Ecclesiastes 1:4
English Standard Version (ESV)
4 A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever.
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Ecclesiastes 4:16
English Standard Version (ESV)
16 There was no end of all the people, all of whom he led. Yet those who come later will not rejoice in him. Surely this also is vanity and a striving after wind.
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In verses 1:4 and 4:16 Solomon places man in the cycle. He doesn’t place man outside of the cycle. Man doesn’t escape the cycle. Man is only cycle. Birth and death and youth and old age. With this in mind Solomon makes this statement.
Ecclesiastes 6:12
12 For who knows what is good for a man during his lifetime, during the few years of his futile life? He will spend them like a shadow. For who can tell a man what will be after him under the sun?
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There is no doubt in my mind that Solomon had the same experience in his life that I had as a younger man. I remember standing by the sea and the moon arose and it was copper and beauty. Then the moon did not look like a flat dish but a globe or a sphere since it was close to the horizon. One could feel the global shape of the earth too. Then it occurred to me that I could contemplate the interplay of the spheres and I was exalted because I thought I can look upon them with all their power, might, and size, but they could contempt nothing and I felt as man as God. Then came upon me a horror of great darkness because it suddenly occurred to me that although I could contemplate them and they could contemplate nothing yet they would continue to turn in ongoing cycles when I saw no more forever and I was crushed.
THIS IS SOLOMON’S FEELING TOO. The universal man, Solomon, beyond our intelligence with an empire at his disposal with the opportunity of observation so he could recite these words here in Ecclesiastes 6:12, “For who knows what is good for a man during his lifetime, during the few years of his futile life? He will spend them like a shadow. For who can tell a man what will be after him under the sun?”
Lack of Satisfaction in life
In Ecclesiastes 1:8 he drives this home when he states, “All things are wearisome; Man is not able to tell it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, Nor is the ear filled with hearing.” Solomon is stating here the fact that there is no final satisfaction because you don’t get to the end of the thing. THERE IS NO FINAL SATISFACTION. This is related to Leonardo da Vinci’s similar search for universals and then meaning in life.
In Ecclesiastes 5:11 Solomon again pursues this theme, “When good things increase, those who consume them increase. So what is the advantage to their owners except to look on?” Doesn’t that sound modern? It is as modern as this evening. Solomon here is stating the fact there is no reaching completion in anything and this is the reason there is no final satisfaction. There is simply no place to stop. It is impossible when laying up wealth for oneself when to stop. It is impossible to have the satisfaction of completion.
Pursuing Learning
Now let us look down the details of his searching.
In Ecclesiastes 1: 13a we have the details of the universal man’s procedure. “And I set my mind to seek and explore by wisdom concerning all that has been done under heaven.”
So like any sensible man the instrument that is used is INTELLECT, and RAITIONALITY, and LOGIC. It is to be noted that even men who despise these in their theories begin and use them or they could not speak. There is no other way to begin except in the way they which man is and that is rational and intellectual with movements of that is logical within him. As a Christian I must say gently in passing that is the way God made him.
So we find first of all Solomon turned to WISDOM and logic. Wisdom is not to be confused with knowledge. A man may have great knowledge and no wisdom. Wisdom is the use of rationality and logic. A man can be very wise and have limited knowledge. Here he turns to wisdom in all that implies and the total rationality of man.
Works of Men done Under the Sun
After wisdom Solomon comes to the great WORKS of men. Ecclesiastes 1:14, “I have seen all the works which have been done under the sun, and behold, all is [p]vanity and striving after wind.” Solomon is the man with an empire at this disposal that speaks. This is the man who has the copper refineries in Ezion-geber. This is the man who made the stables across his empire. This is the man who built the temple in Jerusalem. This is the man who stands on the world trade routes. He is not a provincial. He knew what was happening on the Phonetician coast and he knew what was happening in Egypt. There is no doubt he already knew something of building. This is Solomon and he pursues the greatness of his own construction and his conclusion is VANITY AND VEXATION OF SPIRIT.
Ecclesiastes 2:18-20
18 Thus I hated all the fruit of my labor for which I had labored under the sun, for I must leave it to the man who will come after me.19 And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have control over all the fruit of my labor for which I have labored by acting wisely under the sun. This too is vanity.20 Therefore I completely despaired of all the fruit of my labor for which I had labored under the sun.
He looked at the works of his hands, great and multiplied by his wealth and his position and he shrugged his shoulders.
Ecclesiastes 2:22-23
22 For what does a man get in all his labor and in his striving with which he labors under the sun?23 Because all his days his task is painful and grievous; even at night his mind does not rest. This too is vanity.
Man can not rest and yet he is never done and yet the things which he builds will out live him. If one wants an ironical three phrases these are they. There is a Dutch saying, “The tailor makes many suits but one day he will make a suit that will outlast the tailor.”
God has put eternity in our hearts but we can not know the beginning or the end of the thing from a vantage point of UNDER THE SUN
Ecclesiastes 1:16-18
16 I said to myself, “Behold, I have magnified and increased wisdom more than all who were over Jerusalem before me; and my mind has observed a wealth of wisdom and knowledge.”17 And I set my mind to know wisdom and to know madness and folly; I realized that this also is striving after wind.18 Because in much wisdom there is much grief, and increasing knowledge results in increasing pain.
Solomon points out that you can not know the beginnings or what follows:
Ecclesiastes 3:11
11 He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end.
Ecclesiastes 1:11
11 There is no remembrance of earlier things; And also of the later things which will occur, There will be for them no remembrance among those who will come later still.
Ecclesiastes 2:16
16 For there is no lasting remembrance of the wise man as with the fool, inasmuch as in the coming days all will be forgotten. And how the wise man and the fool alike die!
You bring together here the factor of the beginning and you can’t know what immediately follows after your death and of course you can’t know the final ends. What do you do and the answer is to get drunk and this was not thought of in the RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KAHAYYAM:
Ecclesiastes 2:1-3
I said to myself, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure. So enjoy yourself.” And behold, it too was futility.2 I said of laughter, “It is madness,” and of pleasure, “What does it accomplish?”3 I explored with my mind how to stimulate my body with wine while my mind was guiding me wisely, and how to take hold of folly, until I could see what good there is for the sons of men to do under heaven the few years of their lives.
You know, my Friends, with what a brave Carouse
I made a Second Marriage in my house;
Divorced old barren Reason from my Bed,
And took the Daughter of the Vine to Spouse.
from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (Translation by Edward Fitzgerald)
A perfectly good philosophy coming out of Islam, but Solomon is not the first man that thought of it nor the last. In light of what has been presented by Solomon is the solution just to get intoxicated and black the think out? So many people have taken to alcohol and the dope which so often follows in our day. This approach is incomplete, temporary and immature. Papa Hemingway can find the champagne of Paris sufficient for a time, but one he left his youth he never found it sufficient again. He had a lifetime spent looking back to Paris and that champagne and never finding it enough. It is no solution and Solomon says so too.
Ecclesiastes 2:4-11
4 I enlarged my works: I built houses for myself, I planted vineyards for myself;5 I made gardens and parks for myself and I planted in them all kinds of fruit trees;6 I made ponds of water for myself from which to irrigate a forest of growing trees.7 I bought male and female slaves and I had homeborn slaves. Also I possessed flocks and herds larger than all who preceded me in Jerusalem.8 Also, I collected for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. I provided for myself MALE AND FEMALE SINGERS AND THE PLEASURES OF MEN–MANY CONCUBINES.
9 Then I became great and increased more than all who preceded me in Jerusalem. My wisdom also stood by me.10 All that my eyes desired I did not refuse them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure, for my heart was pleased because of all my labor and this was my reward for all my labor.11 Thus I considered all my activities which my hands had done and the labor which I had exerted, and behold all was vanity and striving after wind and there was no profit under the sun.
He doesn’t mean there is no temporary profit but there is no real profit. Nothing that lasts. The walls crumble if they are as old as the Pyramids. You only see a shell of the Pyramids and not the glory that they were. This is what Solomon is saying. Look upon Solomon’s wonder and consider the Cedars of Lebanon which were not in his domain but at his disposal.
Ecclesiastes 6:2
2 a man to whom God has given riches and wealth and honor so that his soul lacks nothing of all that he desires; yet God has not empowered him to eat from them, for a foreigner enjoys them. This is vanity and a severe affliction.
Can someone stuff himself with food he can’t digest? Solomon came to this place of strife and confusion when he went on in his search for meaning.
Oppressed have no comforter
Ecclesiastes 4:1
Then I looked again at all the acts of oppression which were being done under the sun. And behold I saw the tears of the oppressed and that they had no one to comfort them; and on the side of their oppressors was power, but they had no one to comfort them.
Between birth and death power rules. Solomon looked over his kingdom and also around the world and proclaimed that right does not rule but power rules.
Ecclesiastes 7:14-15
14 In the day of prosperity be happy, but in the day of adversity consider—God has made the one as well as the other so that man will not discover anything that will be after him.
15 I have seen everything during my lifetime of futility; there is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his wickedness.
Ecclesiastes 8:14
14 There is futility which is done on the earth, that is, there are righteous men to whom it happens according to the deeds of the wicked. On the other hand, there are evil men to whom it happens according to the deeds of the righteous. I say that this too is futility.
We could say it in 20th century language, “The books are not balanced in this life.”
Pursuing Ladies
If one would flee to alcohol, then surely one may choose sexual pursuits to flee to. Solomon looks in this area too.
Ecclesiastes 7:25-28
25 I directed my mind to know, to investigate and to seek wisdom and an explanation, and to know the evil of folly and the foolishness of madness.26 And I discovered more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets, whose hands are chains. One who is pleasing to God will escape from her, but the sinner will be captured by her.
27 “Behold, I have discovered this,” says the Preacher, “adding one thing to another to find an explanation,28 I have looked for other answers but have found none. I found one man in a thousand that I could respect, but not one woman. (Good News Translation on verse 28)
One can understand both Solomon’s expertness in this field and his bitterness.
I Kings 11:1-3 (New American Standard Bible)
11 Now King Solomon loved many foreign women along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women,2 from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the sons of Israel, “You shall not associate with them, nor shall they associate with you, for they will surely turn your heart away after their gods.” Solomon held fast to these in love.3 He had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines, and his wives turned his heart away.
An expert but also the reason for his bitterness. Certainly there have been many men over the centuries who have daydreamed of Solomon’s wealth in this area [of women], but at the end it was sorry, not only sorry but nothing and less than nothing. The simple fact is that one can not know woman in the real sense by pursuing 1000 women. It is not possible. Woman is not found this way. All that is left in this setting if one were to pursue the meaning of life in this direction is this most bitter word found in Ecclesiastes 7:28, “I have looked for other answers but have found none. I found one man in a thousand that I could respect, but not one woman.” (Good News Translation on verse 28) He was searching in the wrong way. He was searching for the answer to life in the limited circle of that which is beautiful in itself but not an answer finally in sexual life. More than that he finally tried to find it in variety and he didn’t even touch one woman at the end.
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Last letter I wrote to Hugh Hefner seen below:
Larry Joe Speaks (August 20, 1947 to April 7, 2017)
I started these series of letters on the meaning of it all on April 7, 2017 when my good friend Larry Speaks died. Larry’s favorite sermon was WHO IS JESUS? by Adrian Rogers and he gave hundreds of CD copies of that sermon away. I actually ran the copies off for him and since the sermon was only 37 minutes long and the CD went 60 minutes, I also put on there another sermon by Bill Elliff too called WHAT WILL HAPPEN AT THE END OF TIME? Later in this letter I want to share a portion of that message with you. All of these letters I have written you have dealt with what Solomon had to say concerning the search for satisfaction in life UNDER THE SUN (without God in the picture.) Probably his most disappointing discovery was that being a ladies man left him unsatisfied.
Ecclesiastes 2:8-10The Message (MSG)
I piled up silver and gold,
loot from kings and kingdoms.
I gathered a chorus of singers to entertain me with song,
and—most exquisite of all pleasures— voluptuous maidens for my bed.
9-10 Oh, how I prospered! I left all my predecessors in Jerusalem far behind, left them behind in the dust. What’s more, I kept a clear head through it all. Everything I wanted I took—I never said no to myself. I gave in to every impulse, held back nothing. I sucked the marrow of pleasure out of every task—my reward to myself for a hard day’s work!
1 Kings 11:1-3 English Standard Version (ESV)
11 Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, 2 from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, “You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.” Solomon clung to these in love. 3 He had 700 wives, who were princesses, and 300 concubines. And his wives turned away his heart.
Francis Schaeffer observed concerning Solomon, “You can not know woman but knowing 1000 women.”
King Solomon in Ecclesiastes 2:11 sums up his search for meaning in the area of the Sexual Revolution with these words, “…behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.”
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In fact, the Book of Ecclesiastes shows that Solomon came to the conclusion that NOTHING in life gives true satisfaction without God including knowledge (1:16-18), LADIES and liquor (2:1-3, 8, 10, 11), and great building projects (2:4-6, 18-20). You can only find a lasting meaning to your life by looking above the sun and bring God back into the picture.
Solomon’s experiment was a search for meaning to life “under the sun.” Then in last few words in the Book of Ecclesiastes he looks above the sun and brings God back into the picture: “The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: Fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil.”
Keith Hefner and Hugh Hefner
According to the Bible God will bring every act to judgment!!! Below is a portion of Bill Elliff’s message that deals with this:
WHAT WILL HAPPEN AT THE END OF TIME? I want to look at this picture of what will happen to everyone of us at the end of time. Let’s read our scripture passage.
Luke 12:1-10 English Standard Version (ESV)
Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees
12 In the meantime, when so many thousands of the people had gathered together that they were trampling one another, he began to say to his disciples first, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. 2 Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. 3 Therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops.
Have No Fear
4 “I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. 5 But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him! 6 Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies?[b]And not one of them is forgotten before God. 7 Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.
Acknowledge Christ Before Men
8 “And I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God, 9 but the one who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God. 10 And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.
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What will happen at the end of time?
FIRST OF ALL, Jesus says it will be a time of the revelation of the secrets of your life.
A great time of revealing and uncovering, when unknown things to some become known to all. There is coming a day when what you really are will be revealed.
There is something inside us that thinks we can hide things from each other and hide things from God. Have you ever played HIDE AND SEEK with a group of young children? They will hide in plain view but in their mind they are hidden. My smallest children will put their hands over their eyes and they think that since they can’t see me that they are hidden from my sight. But the truth of the matter is that I can see them so clearly and sometimes we think that because we can’t see God that He can’t see us. Last week we read Hebrews 4:13 that says, “And not a creature exists that is concealed from His sight, but all things are open and exposed, and revealed to the eyes of Him with whom we have to give account.” One day the secrets of our heart will be revealed. In the brief days of our life, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 years that God may give you, or maybe a few years beyond that, we may do a good job of hiding those secrets, but one day the secrets of our lives will be revealed before God.
NEXT after the revelation of the secrets of your life there will be a great revelation of God’s authority.
Do you know what a sovereign is? A sovereign is one who has complete authority. He has the authority and he has the authority to carry it out.
There are 3 kinds of authority. First, voluntary authority such as you choosing to work for an employer. Second,seized authority like a murderer. Third, God is an absolute authority and He is the sovereign and He is over everything. It is right for Him to be over everything because He made everything. He is a God of perfect love, a God of perfect mercy, a God of perfect grace, a God of perfect compassion, but He is a God of perfect righteousness. If He was any less than that then He wouldn’t be God. He is a God of perfect holiness and authority. He has wooed us and called us and given us every opportunity to come, but He is a God who one day who will reveal. He has absolute authority over your life.
Look again at verses 4 and 5:
4 “I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. 5 But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!
God has the authority to do that. There is coming a day when there will be a great separation and a great dividing. It is all over the scriptures. God has given us the moment of grace to come and trust in Him and give our lives to Him, but one day the door will be closed and then the division will come. He will say to some come into my kingdom that I have prepared for you and he will say to others you are headed to an eternity separated. You have chosen your fate for all eternity. There will permanent separation from God in hell.
FINALLY, it will be a day of the revelation of the substance of your relationship to God.
Look at verses 8 and 9:8 “And I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God, 9 but the one who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God.
The Pharisees said they had a relationship with God but they were hypocrites and there was no substance to their relationship. Jesus is saying that when the secrets of your heart are revealed God will determine the substance of your relationship to God and whether it is real or not.
In 1978 I heard the song “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas when it rose to #6 on the charts. That song told me thatKerry Livgren the writer of that song and a member of Kansas had come to the same conclusion that Solomon had. I remember mentioning to my friends at church that we may soon see some members of Kansas become Christians because their search for the meaning of life had obviously come up empty even though they had risen from being an unknown band to the top of the music business and had all the wealth and fame that came with that. Furthermore, like Solomon and Coldplay, they realized death comes to everyone and “there must be something more.”
Livgren wrote:
“All we do, crumbles to the ground though we refuse to see, Dust in the Wind, All we are is dust in the wind, Don’t hang on, Nothing lasts forever but the Earth and Sky, It slips away, And all your money won’t another minute buy.”
Both Kerry Livgren and Dave Hope of Kansas became Christians eventually. Kerry Livgren first tried Eastern Religions and Dave Hope had to come out of a heavy drug addiction. I was shocked and elated to see their personal testimony on The 700 Club in 1981 and that same interview can be seen on youtube today. Livgren lives in Topeka, Kansas today where he teaches “Diggers,” a Sunday school class at Topeka Bible Church. Hope is the head of Worship, Evangelism and Outreach at Immanuel Anglican Church in Destin, Florida.
The movie maker Woody Allen has embraced the nihilistic message of the song “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas. David Segal in his article, “Things are Looking Up for the Director Woody Allen. No?” (Washington Post, July 26, 2006), wrote, “Allen is evangelically passionate about a few subjects. None more so than the chilling emptiness of life…The 70-year-old writer and director has been musing about life, sex, work, death and his generally futile search for hope…the world according to Woody is so bereft of meaning, so godless and absurd, that the only proper response is to curl up on a sofa and howl for your mommy.”
The song “Dust in the Wind” recommends, “Don’t hang on.” Allen himself says, “It’s just an awful thing and in that context you’ve got to find an answer to the question: ‘Why go on?’ ” It is ironic that Chris Martin the leader of Coldplay regards Woody Allen as his favorite director.
Lets sum up the final conclusions of these gentlemen: Coldplay is still searching for that “something more.” Woody Allen has concluded the search is futile. Livgren and Hope of Kansas have become Christians and are involved in fulltime ministry. Solomon’s experiment was a search for meaning to life “under the sun.” Then in last few words in the Book of Ecclesiastes he looks above the sun and brings God back into the picture: “The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: Fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil.”
You can hear Kerry Livgren’s story from this youtube link:
(part 1 ten minutes)
(part 2 ten minutes)
Kansas – Dust In The Wind
Ecclesiastes 1
Published on Sep 4, 2012
Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | September 2, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider
Office of Barack and Michelle Obama P.O. Box 91000 Washington, DC 20066
Dear President Obama,
I wrote you over 700 letters while you were President and I mailed them to the White House and also published them on my blog http://www.thedailyhatch.org .I received several letters back from your staff and I wanted to thank you for those letters.
I have been reading your autobiography A PROMISED LAND and I have been enjoying it.
Let me make a few comments on it, and here is the first quote of yours I want to comment on:
THE SECOND TURN of events was an opportunity rather than a crisis. At the end of April, Supreme Court justice David Souter called to tell me he was retiring from the bench, giving me my first chance to fill a seat on the highest court in the land. Getting somebody confirmed to the Supreme Court has never been a slam dunk, in part because the Court’s role in American government has always been controversial. After all, the idea of giving nine unelected, tenured-for-life lawyers in black robes the power to strike down laws passed by a majority of the people’s representatives doesn’t sound very democratic. But since Marbury v. Madison, the 1803 Supreme Court case that gave the Court final say on the meaning of the U.S. Constitution and established the principle of judicial review over the actions of the Congress and the president, that’s how our system of checks and balances has worked. In theory, Supreme Court justices don’t “make law” when exercising these powers; instead, they’re supposed to merely “interpret” the Constitution, helping to bridge how its provisions were understood by the framers and how they apply to the world we live in today. For the bulk of constitutional cases coming before the Court, the theory holds up pretty well. Justices have for the most part felt bound by the text of the Constitution and precedents set by earlier courts, even when doing so results in an outcome they don’t personally agree with. Throughout American history, though, the most important cases have involved deciphering the meaning of phrases like “due process,” “privileges and immunities,” “equal protection,” or “establishment of religion”—terms so vague that it’s doubtful any two Founding Fathers agreed on exactly what they meant. This ambiguity gives individual justices all kinds of room to “interpret” in ways that reflect their moral judgments, political preferences, biases, and fears. That’s why in the 1930s a mostly conservative Court could rule that FDR’s New Deal policies violated the Constitution, while forty years later a mostly liberal Court could rule that the Constitution grants Congress almost unlimited power to regulate the economy. It’s how one set of justices, in Plessy v. Ferguson, could read the Equal Protection Clause to permit “separate but equal,” and another set of justices, in Brown v. Board of Education, could rely on the exact same language to unanimously arrive at the opposite conclusion. It turned out that Supreme Court justices made law all the time. Over the years, the press and the public started paying more attention to Court decisions and, by extension, to the process of confirming justices. In 1955, southern Democrats—in a fit of pique over the Brown decision—institutionalized the practice of having Supreme Court nominees appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee to be grilled on their legal views. The 1973 Roe v. Wade decision focused further attention on Court appointments, with every nomination from that point on triggering a pitched battle between pro-choice and anti-abortion forces. The high-profile rejection of Robert Bork’s nomination in the late 1980s and the Clarence Thomas–Anita Hill hearings in the early 1990s—in which the nominee was accused of sexual harassment—proved to be irresistible TV drama.
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Let me respond to one sentence:
Getting somebody confirmed to the Supreme Court has never been a slam dunk, in part because the Court’s role in American government has always been controversial.
Liberals seem to have their candidates get through with no false accusations of gang banging like Brett Kavanaugh had thrown at him. In fact, Judge Bork was as brilliant and accomplished judge but he was turned down by Democrats for no good reason.
As a professing Christian you should put pro-life judges on the court!!
His Life Looking at the impassioned yet tongue tied young man in the early 1930’s at a Presbyterian youth group, it would be hard to tell that he was going to be one of the most influential Evangelicals of the 20th century. He was Francis Schaeffer. At the youth group meeting Shaeffer had risen to his feet to dispute the claims of a minister who was giving a talk entitled, “Why I Know Jesus is Not the Son of God, and How I Know the Bible is Not the Word of God” (Burson and Walls 37). Although not able to come up with many sound arguments, he felt the urge to confront falsehood. This burning desire would drive him to investigate and find answers to the problems that plagued humanity and Christianity, especially issues relating to the moral decay of western civilization.Francis August Schaeffer was born in 1912 into a blue collar, hard-working family in Germantown Pennsylvania. His parents were not intellectuals by any means, His father worked with his hands and had hopes of Francis becoming an engineer (Burson and Walls 35). His family was not very religious, but did attend a Presbyterian Church that had slipped off into liberalism. Francis was later to discover that liberal theology was one of the greatest maladies of the western world. Francis started reading the Bible around the age of 17 and believed it, he soon realized that he was alone at his church in his conviction, but the Lord quickly lead him to the Ashmead Place church, which held to the authority of God’s word (Burson and Walls 36).Sensing the call of God on his life, Francis enrolled in college in order to get on a trajectory to seminary, which was against his parents wishes. After getting his bachelors he enrolled in Westminister Theological Seminary, where he learned from J. Greshom Machen and Cornelious Van Til. Both of these men had a profound effect on Schaeffer’s understanding of the world. After graduating he became a minister and lived in Missouri for 10 years, then moved his family to Switzerland in 1948 (Burson and Walls 39).This move came about after the American Council of Church’s had asked him to tour Europe in 1947 to asses the need of the church’s in war torn areas. Schaeffer had developed a taste for art and used this trip to visit many of the famous cathedrals and museums. What startled him the most was the amazing beauty of human accomplishment put in contrast with the devastation of human depravity (Burson and Walls 40). The Schaeffer’s started a ministry in Switzerland called L’Abri, a Christian commune which was like a christian youth hostel and college. He began giving lectures that gave orthodox Christian answers to the problems students were facing. In 1968 he published two books which are still widely influential today, Escape from Reason and The God Who Is There (Morris 12). Over the course of the next 16 years, until his death in 1984, he wrote 21 books in total and many other booklets and articles (Schaeffer, The Great 12).His Thought Dr. Schaeffer divided his work into three categories, “My earlier books dealt especially with the intellectual questions of philosophy and matters in the area of culture. Then there were the books dealing with the Christian life and the church. More recently my books have dealt especially with the area of civil needs and the need of law and government” (The Great 11). In a summary of Schaeffers work, Thomas Morris divided his apologetic’s up into metaphysics, morality and epistemology (23). This paper is a look at Francis Schaeffer’s views on morality, which will take into perspective books in each of the categories Schaeffer mentioned. Schaeffer’s book How Should We Then Live; A Study of the Rise and Fall of Western Civilization, explains his view of the origin of the western world and its moral decline. He took the classical view that Western thought originated with the Greek philosophers Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, their ideas influencing Roman culture which in turn spread them over Europe by military conquest. What made his view unique was that he saw the transition in thought to modernism starting with Aquinas, rather than Descartes (Schaeffer, Escape 11).Thomas Aquinas introduced the concept of nature and grace, which Schaeffer saw as the beginning of a long series of divisions between the metaphysical and the actual (Escape 9). Whatever is metaphysical is placed above in what he called the “upper story” and whatever could be known by the senses was placed below. These divisions moved from nature versus grace to universals versus particulars by the neo-platonists of the late 15th century (Schaeffer, Escape 17). Kant brought this division to freedom versus nature (Schaeffer, Escape 33), then Hegel and Kierkegaard brought the division to faith versus rationality (Schaeffer, Escape 42).
Schaeffer saw all these divisions as an attempt to make humanity autonomous. As seen from these divisions, without God, man becomes an irrational nonentity. With the autonomous world view man died “as far as rationality and logic are concerned” (Schaeffer, Escape 53). He realized that man cannot live like this, he has to have meaning; “man made in the image of God cannot live as though he is nothing and thus he places in the upper story all sorts of desperate things” (Schaeffer, Escape 53). This autonomous view of humanity led to the death of values (Schaeffer, How Should 205). The western world had once been led by a Christian consensus which came out of a long history dating back to the Roman Empire. This consensus had waned at times, but had experienced a re-birth in the reformation and the great awakening, but with the enlightenment and the industrial revolution this consensus began to die. Enlightenment rationalism took control of the arts, music, higher education and eventually theology. The Higher critics of the 18th and 19th century were just the theological out workings of the enlightenment, they excluded God and built their own world view (Schaeffer, The Great 35).
Schaeffer saw human thought working in progressively downward steps, starting with philosophy then art and music, then out to general culture and lastly landing on theology (Escape 43). Once the line of dispair reached theology it was not long before the mainline denominations began to crumble. Splits over Biblical authority and foundational doctrines left the 20th century church in ruins. Schaeffer saw this as the precursor to the moral breakdown of the 1960’s (The Great 35).
After the denominational collapse people were left without any moral foundation. “As the more Christian-dominated consensus weakened, the majority of people adopted two impoverished values: personal peace and affluence” (Schaeffer, How Should 205). The next generation quickly realized that there was no meaning to what their parents believed about life “because the only hope of meaning had been placed in the area of non-reason, drugs were brought into the picture” (Schaeffer, How Should 206). Drug abuse had been around for a long time, but the existential philosophers promoted it as an ideology; Timothy Leary even went so far as to say that drugs were the sacraments of a new religion (Schaeffer, How Should 206). The other ideology that arose was the “New-Left”, encompassing all types of political ideas that are often classed as “liberal” (Schaeffer, How Should 208). These new left political ideas ranged from feminism to abortion, free speech to nudity. Schaeffer saw all this as a rebellion against the values of their parents generation. “The young people wanted more to life than personal peace and affluence. They were right in their analysis of the problem, but they were mistaken in their solutions” (How Should 208).
Schaeffer showed that the humanistic view of man fails. “It fails to explain man. It fails to explain the universe and its form. It fails to stand up in the area of epistemology” (Schaeffer, He Is There 64). “Christianity offers an entirely different set of presuppositions. The other presuppositions simply do not meet the need” (Schaeffer, He Is There 65). A presupposition, as defined by Shaeffer is “a belief or theory which is assumed before the next step in the logical development. Such a prior postulate often consciously or unconsciously affects the way a person subsequently responds” (Morris 18). The presuppositions that Schaeffer was advocating have been summed up into two major assumptions by Morris. First, people have to accept belief in the personal God of the Bible. Second, they need to accept orthodox faith as providing the only answer to their inner and outer experience (Morris 19-21).
These presuppositions are needed as a foundation for the only view of ourselves and the world that matches our experience and gives meaning to humanity. This gives Christianity the authority to stand against those that would either distort the facts of history in order to return to a golden age of Christian dominance, or accommodate to the spirit of the age, distorting the facts of history and orthodox Christian doctrine (Schaeffer, The Great 118).
Works Cited
Burson, Scott R., and Jerry L. Walls. C.S. Lewis & Francis Schaeffer: Lessons for a New Century from the Most Influential Apologists of Our Time. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1998. Print.
Morris, Thomas V. Francis Schaeffer’s Apologetics: a Critique. Chicago: Moody, 1976. Print.
Schaeffer, Francis A. Escape from Reason. London: Inter-Varsity Fellowship, 1968. Print.
—. He Is There and He Is Not Silent. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1972. Print.
—. How Should We Then Live?: the Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture. Old Tappan, NJ: F. H. Revell, 1976. Print.
—. The Great Evangelical Disaster. Westchester, IL: Crossway, 1984. Print.
Schaeffer, Francis A., and C. Everett Koop. Whatever Happened to the Human Race? Old
Tappan, NJ: F.H. Revell, 1979. Print.
The New King James Bible: New Testament. Nashville: T. Nelson, 1979. PrintPosted by Michael Donahue at 8:41 AM
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733 everettehatcher@gmail.com
President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. There have […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers, President Obama | Edit |Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
President Obama Speaks at The Ohio State University Commencement Ceremony Published on May 5, 2013 President Obama delivers the commencement address at The Ohio State University. May 5, 2013. You can learn a lot about what President Obama thinks the founding fathers were all about from his recent speech at Ohio State. May 7, 2013, […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers, President Obama | Edit | Comments (0)
Dr. C. Everett Koop with Bill Graham. Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit |Comments (1)
America’s Founding Fathers Deist or Christian? – David Barton 4/6 There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Tagged governor of connecticut, john witherspoon, jonathan trumbull | Edit | Comments (1)
3 Of 5 / The Bible’s Influence In America / American Heritage Series / David Barton There were 55 gentlemen who put together the constitution and their church affliation is of public record. Greg Koukl notes: Members of the Constitutional Convention, the most influential group of men shaping the political foundations of our nation, were […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
I do not think that John Quincy Adams was a founding father in the same sense that his father was. However, I do think he was involved in the early days of our government working with many of the founding fathers. Michele Bachmann got into another history-related tussle on ABC’s “Good Morning America” today, standing […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Arkansas Times, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit |Comments (0)
I truly believe that many of the problems we have today in the USA are due to the advancement of humanism in the last few decades in our society. Ronald Reagan appointed the evangelical Dr. C. Everett Koop to the position of Surgeon General in his administration. He partnered with Dr. Francis Schaeffer in making the […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ____________ The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This book really helped develop my political […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
Which is why I’m very excited that we’re about to see a massive expansion of school choice in West Virginia.
The state legislature has enacted and the governor is expected to sign (fingers crossed!) legislation creating education savings accounts (ESAs) providing $4,600 per child.
These accounts, called Hope Scholarships, will be available to all families with kids in government schools (and every single new kindergarten student). Parents then can use the funds for private school tuition, homeschooling expenses, and a range of other approved items.
The state’s leading think tank, the Cardinal Institute, has a primeron the issue.
ESAs allow parents to apply for eligible students to receive the state portion of education funds into a personal, parent-controlled account. Parents are then empowered to customize an education experience that meets the individual needs of their child, using their account to pay for approved services like tuition, therapy, tutoring, textbooks, and more.…the bill would extend ESAs to students who are enrolled in a public elementary or secondary school… parents will only be able to purchase approved items and services. This makes ESAs as—if not more—transparent than any other form of education spending. …The key aspect that distinguishes ESAs from vouchers is parent control and customization. Instead of the state sending funds directly from the state to a specific private school, the state instead deposits funds into a parent-controlled account. These funds can then be spent on wide array of approved education services, not only tuition
Corey DeAngelis and Neal McCluskey address some of the hot-button issues in an article for Reason.
West Virginia’s public schools spend an average of $12,644 per child per year, while the estimated amount of funding that would follow the child under HB 2013 would be about $4,600. If the legislation becomes law, public schools would keep large amounts of funding for children even after they left,meaning they would end up with more money per child. …choice opponents in the state also are claiming that $4,600 is too low to cover private school tuition. But do those same people oppose Pell Grants just because they don’t cover the full cost of attending many universities? …And $4,600 would actually go a long way in West Virginia as the average private school tuition in the state is just $6,068 and the average elementary school cost is $4,890. …The worst thing about anti-school choice myths is that they disproportionately prevent the least advantaged from access to much-needed education options.
Amen to the last point.
School choice should be the civil rights issue of the 21st century since black and brown kids are the biggest victims of the government school monopoly.
I’ll close by observing that teacher unions traditionally have done a very good job of protecting their monopoly. Every time I think a state is poised to make progress on school choice (most recently in Pennsylvania and Colorado), the unions dump tons of money into campaigns so they can maintain their privileges.
Assuming West Virginia’s Republican governor, Jim Justice, doesn’t betray children by unexpectedly vetoing the legislation, the union win streak will have ended.
P.S. Here’s a video explaining the benefits of school choice.
P.P.S. There’s international evidence from Sweden, Chile, Canada, and the Netherlands, all of which shows superior results when competition replaces government education monopolies.
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos supports vouchers that allow parents to use taxpayer funds to help pay private-school tuition for their children. Like the noted economist Milton Friedman, she believes that parental choice and competition among schools to attract students in a voucher system would result in better education than that provided by public schools. A corollary of her and Friedman’s perspective is that detailed regulations governing the operation of schools hinder their performance.
While there are many small-scale voucher programs in the United States operated by local communities or states, none has sufficient scale to shed light on the consequences of a universal voucher system. For such evidence we must turn to Chile, a country that shares the U.S.’s strong support for the operation of markets and its high degree of income inequality.
The effects of a nationwide, universal voucher program there show that unregulated school choice led to flat test scores and greater achievement gaps among rich and poor. Only when regulation was added did private school choice begin to deliver on its promise.
In 1981, Chile introduced a universal educational voucher system for students in both its elementary and secondary schools that was very similar to the model Friedman proposed in 1955. Parents could use government-provided vouchers either to pay for a year of education at a public school or to contribute to the tuition charged by a private not-for-profit or profit-seeking school.
The financial value of the voucher did not depend on family income. Private schools that participated in the voucher program could decide what tuition to charge and which students to admit. In contrast, public schools were required to admit any students and could not charge tuition. This basic design of the voucher system remained in effect through 2007.
A number of scholars have examined the consequences of the introduction of vouchers in Chile. The percentage of students enrolled in public schools declined markedly, from 78 percent in 1980 to less than 50 percent in 2007. Student achievement in mathematics and Spanish, as measured on national tests, stagnated, and the gap between the average achievement of children from low- and middle-income families increased.
So did segregation of students by socio-economic background. Students from low-income families ended up attending different schools from those attended by children from more affluent families. If this were the end of the story from Chile, the lesson would be that advocates for improving the education received by children from low-income families should strongly oppose the introduction of vouchers. However, new evidence presents a more complicated picture.
In January 2008, the Chilean national legislature passed the Preferential School Subsidy Law (SEP) that dramatically altered the regulations governing the nation’s educational voucher system. SEP recognized explicitly that it costs more to educate students from low-income families well, especially in schools serving large percentages of children living in poverty.
Under SEP, the vouchers provided to “Priority students,” basically those whose families were in the bottom 40 percent of the income distribution, were worth 50 percent more than those provided to other students. In addition to the higher-valued vouchers, schools serving large percentages of Priority students received per-student concentration bonuses, the size of which depended on the percentage of Priority students in the school’s student body.
To be eligible to receive the higher-valued vouchers and concentration bonuses, schools had to agree to three requirements of the SEP program. One was not to charge Priority students any tuition. A second was to agree not to select students based on their academic skills, nor expel them on academic grounds. A third requirement was that schools had to participate in a government-administered accountability system that, for the first time, made schools responsible for improving student test scores and for the use of financial resources.
Working with several colleagues, we examined the consequences of the change in the rules governing Chile’s voucher system. We learned that the majority of for-profit private schools found SEP requirements unacceptable and initially decided not to participate. Most not-for-profit private schools and virtually all public schools did choose to participate.
In the first five years after the passage of SEP, the average test scores of Chilean fourth grade students from both low- and higher-income families increased markedly and income-based gaps in those scores declined by one-third. We found that the key mechanism responsible for these gains was the combination of increased financial support of schools and the SEP accountability system.
We also found that the movement of students away from public schools and into private schools continued under SEP, and that this trend held for low-income as well as those from higher-income families. The segregation of low-income students into different schools from those attended by higher-income students did not decrease in the first five years after the passage of SEP.
Some private schools specialized in serving low-income students, just as had been the case before the passage of SEP. But under SEP, these schools had much more money to work with as well as pressure to improve student test scores. Other private schools specialized in serving students from middle-class families and served relatively few Priority students.
Chile’s long-term experience with universal voucher systems offers two lessons for policymakers concerned with improving the education of all American children, including those from low-income families. The first is that the rules governing the operation of a voucher system matter enormously.
A voucher system that provides the same amount of money to every child and that relies solely on the operation of education markets to monitor the quality of schools is likely to result in more segregated schools and greater inequality of educational outcomes. In contrast, a voucher system that takes into account the especially high cost of educating well children from low-income families, especially when they are concentrated in particular schools, and that provides government monitoring of the performance of individual schools, may result in improved test scores for both low- and higher-income students and a closing of income-related achievement gaps.
The second lesson is that school choice is unlikely to reduce school segregation by income or race. School segregation by income increased in Chile under a voucher system that treated all students equally. It did not markedly decrease during the first five years of SEP, even though this voucher system provided significant financial incentives to schools to recruit students from low-income families. If reducing school segregation is a public policy goal, progress will require something other than providing parents with education vouchers.
Michael Harrington: If you don’t have the expertise, the knowledge technology today, you’re out of the debate. And I think that we have to democratize information and government as well as the economy and society. FRIEDMAN: I am sorry to say Michael Harrington’s solution is not a solution to it. He wants minority rule, I […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)
PETERSON: Well, let me ask you how you would cope with this problem, Dr. Friedman. The people decided that they wanted cool air, and there was tremendous need, and so we built a huge industry, the air conditioning industry, hundreds of thousands of jobs, tremendous earnings opportunities and nearly all of us now have air […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)
Part 5 Milton Friedman: I do not believe it’s proper to put the situation in terms of industrialist versus government. On the contrary, one of the reasons why I am in favor of less government is because when you have more government industrialists take it over, and the two together form a coalition against the ordinary […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)
The fundamental principal of the free society is voluntary cooperation. The economic market, buying and selling, is one example. But it’s only one example. Voluntary cooperation is far broader than that. To take an example that at first sight seems about as far away as you can get __ the language we speak; the words […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)
_________________________ Pt3 Nowadays there’s a considerable amount of traffic at this border. People cross a little more freely than they use to. Many people from Hong Kong trade in China and the market has helped bring the two countries closer together, but the barriers between them are still very real. On this side […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)
Aside from its harbor, the only other important resource of Hong Kong is people __ over 4_ million of them. Like America a century ago, Hong Kong in the past few decades has been a haven for people who sought the freedom to make the most of their own abilities. Many of them are […]
By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)
“FREE TO CHOOSE” 1: The Power of the Market (Milton Friedman) Free to Choose ^ | 1980 | Milton Friedman Posted on Monday, July 17, 2006 4:20:46 PM by Choose Ye This Day FREE TO CHOOSE: The Power of the Market Friedman: Once all of this was a swamp, covered with forest. The Canarce Indians […]
If you would like to see the first three episodes on inflation in Milton Friedman’s film series “Free to Choose” then go to a previous post I did. Ep. 9 – How to Cure Inflation [4/7]. Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980) Uploaded by investbligurucom on Jun 16, 2010 While many people have a fairly […]
Charlie Rose interview of Milton Friedman My favorite economist: Milton Friedman : A Great Champion of Liberty by V. Sundaram Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist who advocated an unfettered free market and had the ear of three US Presidents – Nixon, Ford and Reagan – died last Thursday (16 November, 2006 ) in San Francisco […]
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Stearns Speaks on House Floor in Support of Balanced Budget Amendment Uploaded by RepCliffStearns on Nov 18, 2011 Speaking on House floor in support of Balanced Budget Resolution, 11/18/2011 ___________ Below are some of the main proposals of Milton Friedman. I highly respected his work. David J. Theroux said this about Milton Friedman’s view concerning […]
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Milton Friedman: Free To Choose – The Failure Of Socialism With Ronald Reagan (Full) Published on Mar 19, 2012 by NoNationalityNeeded Milton Friedman’s writings affected me greatly when I first discovered them and I wanted to share with you. We must not head down the path of socialism like Greece has done. Abstract: Ronald Reagan […]
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What a great defense of Milton Friedman!!!! Defaming Milton Friedman by Johan Norberg This article appeared in Reason Online on September 26, 2008 PRINT PAGE CITE THIS Sans Serif Serif Share with your friends: ShareThis In the future, if you tell a student or a journalist that you favor free markets and limited government, there is […]
As progressives push hard for Democrats to eliminate the legislative filibuster after gaining control of the Senate, House and the presidency, many Democratic senators are distancing themselves from a letter they signed in 2017 backing the procedure.
Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Chris Coons, D-Del., led a letter in 2017 that asked Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to preserve the legislative filibuster. As it’s existed for decades, the filibuster requires 60 votes in order to end debate on a bill and proceed to a final vote.
“We are writing to urge you to support our efforts to preserve existing rules, practices, and traditions” on the filibuster, the letter said.
Besides Collins and Coons, 59 other senators joined on the letter. Of that group, 27 Democratic signatories still hold federal elected office. Twenty-six still hold their Senate seats, and Vice President Harris assumed her new job on Jan. 20, vacating her former California Senate seat.
Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., speaks as the Senate Judiciary Committee hears from legal experts on the final day of the confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 15, 2020. Coons has softened his support for the legislative filibuster in recent years after leading an effort to protect it in 2017. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
But now, the momentum among Senate Democrats is for either full abolition of the filibuster or significantly weakening it. President Biden endorsed the latter idea Tuesday, announcing his support for a “talking filibuster.”
“I don’t think that you have to eliminate the filibuster, you have to do it what it used to be when I first got to the Senate back in the old days,” Biden told ABC. “You had to stand up and command the floor, you had to keep talking.”
The legislative filibuster has been a 60-vote threshold for what is called a “cloture vote” — or a vote to end debate on a bill — meaning that any 41 senators could prevent a bill from getting to a final vote. If there are not 60 votes, the bill cannot proceed.
The “talking filibuster” — as it was most recently seriously articulated by Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., in 2012 — would allow 41 senators to prevent a final vote by talking incessantly, around-the-clock, on the Senate floor. But once those senators stop talking, the threshold for a cloture vote is lowered to 51.
Harris’ office confirmed to Fox News Wednesday that she is now aligned with Biden on the filibuster issue. She’d previously taken an even more hostile position to the filibuster, saying she would fully “get rid” of it “to pass a Green New Deal” at a CNN town hall in 2019.
The legislative filibuster has been a 60-vote threshold for what is called a “cloture vote” — or a vote to end debate on a bill — meaning that any 41 senators could prevent a bill from getting to a final vote. If there are not 60 votes, the bill cannot proceed.
The “talking filibuster” — as it was most recently seriously articulated by Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., in 2012 — would allow 41 senators to prevent a final vote by talking incessantly, around-the-clock, on the Senate floor. But once those senators stop talking, the threshold for a cloture vote is lowered to 51.
Harris’ office confirmed to Fox News Wednesday that she is now aligned with Biden on the filibuster issue. She’d previously taken an even more hostile position to the filibuster, saying she would fully “get rid” of it “to pass a Green New Deal” at a CNN town hall in 2019.
Coons, who led the 2017 letter along with Collins, has also distanced himself from his previous stance.
Vice President Kamala Harris attends a ceremonial swearing-in for Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., as President Pro Tempore of the Senate on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Feb. 4, 2021. Harris has changed her stance on the legislative filibuster since signing a letter in 2017 backing it. (Michael Reynolds/Pool via AP) (AP)
“I’m going to try my hardest, first, to work across the aisle,” he said in September when asked about ending the filibuster. “Then, if, tragically, Republicans don’t change the tune or their behavior at all, I would.”
Fox News reached out to all of the other 26 Democratic signatories of the 2017 letter, and they all either distanced themselves from that position or did not respond to Fox News’ inquiry.
“Less than four years ago, when Donald Trump was President and Mitch McConnell was the Majority Leader, 61 Senators, including more than 25 Democrats, signed their names in opposition to any efforts that would curtail the filibuster,” a GOP aide told Fox News. “Other than the occupant of the White House, and the balance of power in the Senate, what’s changed?”
“I’m interested in getting results for the American people, and I hope we will find common ground to advance key priorities,” Sen. Tim Kaine. D-Va., said in a statement. “If Republicans try to use arcane rules to block us from getting results for the American people, then we’ll have a conversation at that time.”
Added Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va: “I am still hopeful that the Senate can work together in a bipartisan way to address the enormous challenges facing the country. But when it comes to fundamental issues like protecting Americans from draconian efforts attacking their constitutional right to vote, it would be a mistake to take any option off the table.”
“Senator Stabenow understands the urgency of passing important legislation, including voting rights, and thinks it warrants a discussion about the filibuster if Republicans refuse to work across the aisle,” Robyn Bryan, a spokesperson for Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., said.
FILE – In this Oct. 26, 2018, file photo, Sen.Bob Casey, D-Pa., speaks to reporters in the studio of KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh. Casey has reversed his stance on the legislative filibuster since signing a 2017 letter in support of it. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)
Representatives for Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., pointed to recent comments he made on MSNBC.
“Yes, absolutely,” Casey said when asked if he would support a “talking filibuster” or something similar. “Major changes to the filibuster for someone like me would not have been on the agenda even a few years ago. But the Senate does not work like it used to.”
“I hope any Democratic senator who’s not currently in support of changing the rules or altering them substantially, I hope they would change their minds,” Casey added.
Representatives for Sen. Angus King, I-Vt., who caucuses with Democrats, meanwhile, references a Bangor Daily News editorial that said King was completely against the filibuster in 2012 but now believes it’s helpful in stopping bad legislation. It said, however, that King is open to “modifications” similar to a talking filibuster.
The senators who did not respond to questions on their 2017 support of the filibuster were Sens. Joe Manchin. D-W.Va.; Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.; Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.; Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H.; Michael Bennet, D-Colo.; Martin Heinrich, D-N.M.; Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio; Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.; Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.; Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii; Cory Booker, D-N.J.; Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.; Maize Hirono, D-Hawaii; John Tester, D-Mont.; Tom Carper, D-Del.; Maggie Hassan, D-N.H.; Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill.; Jack Reed, D-R-I.; Ed Markey, D-Mass.; Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.; and Bob Menendez, D-N.J.
Some of these senators, however, have addressed the filibuster in other recent comments.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., on Wednesday was asked if she supported changing the filibuster threshold by CNN and said she is still opposed to the idea. “Not at this time,” Feinstein said.
Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2020, during the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Hirono has changed her opinion on the legislative filibuster since signing a 2017 letter supporting it. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Sen. Maize Hirono, D-Hawaii, meanwhile said last week she is already for getting rid of the current 60-vote threshold and thinks other Democrats will sign on soon.
“If Mitch McConnell continues to be totally an obstructionist, and he wants to use the 60 votes to stymie everything that President Biden wants to do and that we Democrats want to do that will actually help people,” Hirono said, “then I think the recognition will be among the Democrats that we’re gonna need to.”
The most recent talk about either removing or significantly weakening the filibuster was spurred by comments from Manchin that appeared to indicate he would be open to a talking filibuster. He said filibustering a bill should be more “painful” for a minority.
Manchin appeared to walk back any talk of a talking filibuster on Wednesday, however.
“You know where my position is,” he said. “There’s no little bit of this and a little bit — there’s no little bit here. You either protect the Senate, you protect the institution and you protect democracy or you don’t.”
Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., both committed to supporting the current form of the filibuster earlier this year. Sinema was not in the Senate in 2017.
Senate Minority Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said their comments gave him the reassurance he needed to drop a demand that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., put filibuster protections into the Senate’s organizing resolution.
But with Manchin seeming to flake at least in the eyes of some, other Democrats are beginning to push harder for filibuster changes.
S.311/H.R.962: Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act: Congress finds the following:
If an abortion results in the live birth of an infant, the infant is a legal person for all purposes under the laws of the United States, and entitled to all the protections of such laws.
(2) Any infant born alive after an abortion or within a hospital, clinic, or other facility has the same claim to the protection of the law that would arise for any newborn, or for any person who comes to a hospital, clinic, or other facility for screening and treatment or otherwise becomes a patient within its care.
In the case of an attempted abortion that results in a child born alive, any health care practitioner present at the time the child is born alive shall exercise the same degree of professional skill, care, and diligence to preserve the life and health of the child as a reasonably diligent and conscientious health care practitioner would render to any other child born alive at the same gestational age.
Opposing argument from Rewire.com, “Born Alive Propaganda,” by Calla Hales, 4/12/2019: From restrictive bans at various points of pregnancy to a proposed death penalty for seeking care, both federal and state legislators are taking aim at abortion rights. The goal? To make abortion illegal, criminalizing patients and providers in the process. One kind of bill making a recent resurgence is the “Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act.” These bills aim to further the false narrative that abortions regularly occur immediately before or, according to the president, at the time of birth. Intentional action to end the life of an infant is already illegal. This is covered by federal and state infanticide laws. These bills do nothing but vilify physicians who provide reproductive health care.
Legislative outcome Referred to Committee in House; Senate motion to proceed rejected, 56-41-3 (60 required).
I wanted to talk to about abortion too. Below is a quote from the book WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE? By Francis Schaeffer and C.Everett Koop:
As another example, a publication of Nurses Concerned for Life, Inc., considered these facts, reported in the PITTSBURGH PRESS on November 1, 1974:
A 26-year-old woman requested an abortion of her 5-month fetus, claiming that she had been raped. The woman was first turned down by Magee Woman’s Hospital because it was thought the pregnancy was too far advanced. The staff physician estimated the gestational age to be about 25 weeks. It was later established that she had not been raped.
The abortion was then performed by Dr. Leonard Laufe of West Penn Hospital in Pittsburgh, PA., who decided to use the prostaglandin needed. Prostaglandin is an abortifacient drug whose primary effect is stimulation of the uterine contractions. Ifs use frequently leads to a live birth. Nurse Monica Bright testified that the child gasped for breath for at least 15 minutes following the abortion and no attempts were made to help the child in any way. Ms. Bright is a circulating nurse in Labor and Delivery. She further testified that she observed a pulse in the upper chest, left neck area. Ms. Shirley Foust, R. N., testified she had seen the baby move and that one of the foreign residents, who was observing, baptized the child. The Head Nurse, Carol Totton, testified that the baby was gasping and a pulse was visible. Both the nurse anaesthetist and Ms. Totton refused to adminsiter a lethal dose of morphine to the baby despite the fact that “someone in the room had ordered it.”
(Page 304)
The nurse anaesthetist, Nancy Gaskey, testified that the abortion was performed in a room where there were no resuscitative measures available if the child was born alive.
The entire procedure was filmed for educational purposes and the film showed the baby moving. Dr. Jules Rivkind, Chairman, Department of OB and Gyn, at Mercy Hospital, testified that this was indeed “a live birth.”
The original birth records indicate the baby girl weighed 3 lbs. 1 ounce and listed the length as 45 centimeters. Dr. Laufe later changed the hospital records to read as follows: weight 2 lbs, 9 oz, length 29 centimeters. Lois Cleary, a staff nurse, witnessed this change, and testified that in the 3,000 to 4,000 births she had assisted with there had never been such changes made on original records to her knowledge. This change was also verified by an OB technician who was present. Estimated gestational age 29 to 32 weeks.
John Kenney, a young medical student, testifed that he had been threatened by Dr. Laufe’s attorney if he testified in court against Dr. Laufe. The young man was told that he would be unable to get an internship in any hospital in Pennsylvania if he testified. He was also told he would be unable to get a license to practice medicine.
Editor’s note: (You be the Judge)–Dr. Laufe was acquitted of the charges because he claimed the baby’s brain was dead due to damage caused when he clamped the unbilical arteries in utero.
Embryos “created” in the biologists’ laboratories raise special questions because they have the potential for growth and development if planted in the womb. The disposal of these live embryos is a cause for ethical and moral concern. Dr. Leon Kass, a University of Chicago biologist, wonders:
Who decides what are the grounds for discard? What if there is another recipient available who wishes to have the otherwise unwanted embryo? The geneticist’s? The obstetrician’s? The Ford Foundation’s? Shall we say that discarding laboratory grown embryos is a matter solely between a doctor and his plumber? …We have paid some high prices for the technological conquest of nature, but none so high as the intellectual and spiritual costs of seeing nature as mere material for our manipulation, exploitation and transformation. With the powers for biological engineering now gathering, there will be splendid new opportunities for a similar degradation of our view of man. Indeed, we are already witnessing the erosion of our idea of man as something splendid or divine, as a creature with freedom and dignity. And clearly, if we come to see ourselves as meat, then meat we shall become.
(page 305)
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733 everettehatcher@gmail.com
(Emailed to White House on 12-21-12.) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Milton Friedman, President Obama, spending out of control, Taxes | Edit | Comments (0)
(Emailed to White House on 12-21-12.) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Milton Friedman, President Obama, Ronald Reagan, spending out of control, Taxes | Edit | Comments (0)
(Emailed to White House on 12-21-12) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in President Obama, Ronald Reagan, spending out of control, Taxes | Edit | Comments (0)
The federal government has a spending problem and Milton Friedman came up with the negative income tax to help poor people get out of the welfare trap. It seems that the government screws up about everything. Then why is President Obama wanting more taxes? _______________ Milton Friedman – The Negative Income Tax Published on […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in President Obama, spending out of control, Taxes | Edit | Comments (0)
I was sad to read that the Speaker John Boehner has been involved in punishing tea party republicans. Actually I have written letters to several of these same tea party heroes telling them that I have emailed Boehner encouraging him to listen to them. Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ),Justin Amash (R-MI), and Tim Huelskamp (R-KS). have been contacted […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Speaker of the House John Boehner, spending out of control | Edit | Comments (0)
Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute in his article, “Hitting the Ceiling,” National Review Online, March 7, 2012 noted: After all, despite all the sturm und drang about spending cuts as part of last year’s debt-ceiling deal, federal spending not only increased from 2011 to 2012, it rose faster than inflation and population growth combined. […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in spending out of control, Taxes| Edit | Comments (0)
Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute in his article, “Hitting the Ceiling,” National Review Online, March 7, 2012 noted: After all, despite all the sturm und drang about spending cuts as part of last year’s debt-ceiling deal, federal spending not only increased from 2011 to 2012, it rose faster than inflation and population growth combined. […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in spending out of control, Taxes| Edit | Comments (0)
Some of the heroes are Mo Brooks, Martha Roby, Jeff Flake, Trent Franks, Duncan Hunter, Tom Mcclintock, Devin Nunes, Scott Tipton, Bill Posey, Steve Southerland and those others below in the following posts. THEY VOTED AGAINST THE DEBT CEILING INCREASE IN 2011 AND WE NEED THAT TYPE OF LEADERSHIP NOW SINCE PRESIDENT OBAMA HAS BEEN […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in spending out of control, Taxes| Edit | Comments (0)
I hated to see that Allen West may be on the way out. ABC News reported: Nov 7, 2012 7:20am What Happened to the Tea Party (and the Blue Dogs?) Some of the Republican Party‘s most controversial House members are clinging to narrow leads in races where only a few votes are left to count. […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Rep Himes and Rep Schweikert Discuss the Debt and Budget Deal Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute in his article, “Hitting the Ceiling,” National Review Online, March 7, 2012 noted: After all, despite all the sturm und drang about spending cuts as part of last year’s debt-ceiling deal, federal spending not only increased from 2011 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in spending out of control, Taxes| Edit | Comments (0)
Milton Friedman – A Conversation On Minimum Wage FREE TO CHOOSE
March 24, 2021
Office of Barack and Michelle Obama P.O. Box 91000 Washington, DC 20066
Dear President Obama,
I wrote you over 700 letters while you were President and I mailed them to the White House and also published them on my blog http://www.thedailyhatch.org .I received several letters back from your staff and I wanted to thank you for those letters.
There are several issues raised in your book that I would like to discuss with you such as the minimum wage law, the liberal press, the cause of 2007 financial meltdown, and especially your pro-choice (what I call pro-abortion) view which I strongly object to on both religious and scientific grounds, Two of the most impressive things in your book were your dedication to both the National Prayer Breakfast (which spoke at 8 times and your many visits to the sides of wounded warriors!!
I have been reading your autobiography A PROMISED LAND and I have been enjoying it.
Let me make a few comments on it, and here is the first quote of yours I want to comment on:
I was campaigning to push the country in the opposite direction. I didn’t think America could roll back automation or sever the global supply chain (though I did think we could negotiate stronger labor and environmental provisions in our trade agreements). But I was certain we could adapt our laws and institutions, just as we’d done in the past, to make sure that folks willing to work could get a fair shake. At every stop I made, in every city and small town, my message was the same. I promised to raise taxes on high-income Americans to pay for vital investments in education, research, and infrastructure. I promised to strengthen unions and raise the minimum wage as well as to deliver universal healthcare and make college more affordable. I wanted people to understand that there was a precedent for bold government action. FDR had saved capitalism from itself, laying the foundation for a post–World War II boom.
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The minimum wage has hurt young people as they seek to enter the job market and prove themselves and start heading up the financial ladder of opportunity and by cutting the bottom of the ladder off it is difficult for the most unskilled and disadvantaged to compete!
If I banged my head against the wall every time politicians advocated bad policy in Washington – which is a tempting impulse, I would have been institutionalized because of brain damage a long time ago.
But it’s difficult to maintain my self control when I think about minimum wage laws.
All sentient human beings should know higher minimum wage laws will mean more unemployment. Just ask them, for instance, what would happen if the minimum wage was raised to $100 per hour. Once they admit that would lead to massive job losses, they’ve accepted the principle and it’s simply an empirical issue of figuring out how many jobs are lost when the minimum wage is $75, $50, $20, $10, $6, etc.
At the risk of stating the obvious, businesses seek to make money and they won’t hire somebody who can only produce $6 of value per hour if the government says that person has to be paid $7.25.
But there are those who nonetheless push for higher minimum wage requirements. I’ve previously provided six potential reasons why a person would support such a policy, three of which are because of cynicism and three of which are because of naiveté.
I strongly suspect Obama and his team are pushing for a higher minimum wage for the first reason, but it’s hard to even care. All that really matters is that people will suffer if the President succeeds.
Now, perhaps, you understand why this issue is so frustrating.
So let’s try to maintain our sanity by mocking these feckless and uncaring politicians.
Here are a couple of good cartoons on the topic, beginning with a clever contribution from Lisa Benson.
This Steve Breen cartoon makes the same point, showing how the poor are disadvantaged.
I also would recommend this video if you want to learn more about the minimum wage, and if you want to understand why this issue gets me very frustrated, check out this interview.
President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. There have […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers, President Obama | Edit |Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
President Obama Speaks at The Ohio State University Commencement Ceremony Published on May 5, 2013 President Obama delivers the commencement address at The Ohio State University. May 5, 2013. You can learn a lot about what President Obama thinks the founding fathers were all about from his recent speech at Ohio State. May 7, 2013, […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers, President Obama | Edit | Comments (0)
Dr. C. Everett Koop with Bill Graham. Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit |Comments (1)
America’s Founding Fathers Deist or Christian? – David Barton 4/6 There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Tagged governor of connecticut, john witherspoon, jonathan trumbull | Edit | Comments (1)
3 Of 5 / The Bible’s Influence In America / American Heritage Series / David Barton There were 55 gentlemen who put together the constitution and their church affliation is of public record. Greg Koukl notes: Members of the Constitutional Convention, the most influential group of men shaping the political foundations of our nation, were […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
I do not think that John Quincy Adams was a founding father in the same sense that his father was. However, I do think he was involved in the early days of our government working with many of the founding fathers. Michele Bachmann got into another history-related tussle on ABC’s “Good Morning America” today, standing […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Arkansas Times, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit |Comments (0)
I truly believe that many of the problems we have today in the USA are due to the advancement of humanism in the last few decades in our society. Ronald Reagan appointed the evangelical Dr. C. Everett Koop to the position of Surgeon General in his administration. He partnered with Dr. Francis Schaeffer in making the […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ____________ The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This book really helped develop my political […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
That’s true if you look at average levels of consumption in different nations, but the most compelling data is the fact that lower-income people in the United States generally enjoy living standards that are equal to or even higher than those for middle-class people in most European countries.
A bigger burden of government is not just a theoretical concern. President Biden has already pushed through a $1.9 trillion spending bill that includes some temporary provisions – such as per-child handouts – that, if made permanent, could add several trillion dollars to the burden of government spending.
And the White House has signaled support for $3 trillion of additional spending for items such as infrastructure, green energy, and other boondoggles.
So what will it mean for America if our medium-sized welfare state morphs into a European-style large welfare state?
The answer to that question is rather unpleasant, at least if some new research from the Congressional Budget Office is any indication. The study, authored by Jaeger Nelson and Kerk Phillips, considers the impact on growth based on six different scenarios (based on how much the spending burden increases and what taxes are increased).
If permanent spending is financed by new or increased taxes, then those taxes influence people’s decisions about how much to work and save. Those decisions then affect how much the economy produces and businesses invest and, ultimately, how much people can consume. Different types of taxes have different economic effects. Taxes on labor income reduce after-tax wages, so they reduce the return on each additional hour worked. …Higher taxes on capital income, such as dividends and capital gains, lower the average after-tax rate of return on private wealth holdings (or the return on investment), which reduces the incentive to save and invest and leads to reductions in saving, investment, and the capital stock. …we compare the effects of raising additional revenues through three illustrative tax policies: a flat tax on labor income, a flat tax on all income (including both labor and capital income), and a progressive tax on all income. The additional revenues generated by these policies are in addition to the revenues raised by taxes that already exist and are used to finance two specific increases in government spending. The two increases in government spending are set to 5 percent and 10 percent of GDP in 2020.
Here are some of the key results, as illustrated by the chart.
The least-worst result (the blue line) is a decline in GDP of about 3 percent, and that happens if the spending burden expand by 5-percentage points of GDP and is financed by a flat tax.
The worst-worst result (dashed red line) is a staggering decline in GDP of about 10 percent, and that happens if the spending burden climbs by 10-percentage points and is financed by a progressive tax.
Here’s some additional analysis, including a description of why progressive taxes impose the most damage.
This paper shows that flat labor and flat income tax policies have similar effects on output; labor taxes reduce the labor supply more, and income taxes reduce the capital stock more. For all three policies, the decline in income contracts the tax base considerably over time. As a result, to continuously generate enough revenues to finance the increase in government spending in each year, tax rates must steadily increase over time to account for the decline in the tax base. Moreover, labor and capital taxes put upward pressure on interest rates by reducing the capital-to-labor ratio over time… The largest declines in economic activity among the financing methods considered occur with the progressive tax on all income. Those declines occur because high-productivity workers reduce their hours worked and because higher taxes on asset income reduce the incentive to save and invest relatively more than under the two flat taxes.
There’s lots of additional information in the study, but I definitely want to draw attention to Table 4 because it shows that lower-income people will suffer big reductions in living standards if there’s an increase in the burden of government spending (circled in red).
What makes these results especially remarkable is that the authors only look at the damage caused by higher taxes.
Yet we know from other research that the economy also will suffer because of the higher spending burden. This is because of the various ways that growth is reduced when resources are diverted from the productive sector to the government.
For background, here’s a video on the theoretical reasons why government spending hinders growth.
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P.S. The CBO study also points out that financing new spending with a value-added tax wouldn’t avert economic damage.
…by reducing the cost of time spent not working for pay relative to other goods, a consumption tax could reduce hours worked through a channel like that of a tax on labor.
While I freely self-identify as a libertarian, I don’t think of myself as a philosophical ideologue.
Instead, I’m someone who likes digging into data to determine the impact of government policy. And because I’ve repeatedly noticed that more government almost always leads to worse outcomes, I’ve become a practical ideologue.
In other words, when looking at at an issue, I now have a default assumption that government is going to be the problem, not the solution.
I think more people will share my viewpoint if they peruse this chart from Mark Perry.
It shows changes in prices for selected goods and services over the past 21 years, and the inescapable conclusion (as I noted when writing about the 2014 version of his chart) is that we get higher relative prices in sectors where there’s the most government intervention.
By contrast, we see falling relative prices (and sometimes falling absolute prices!) in sectors where there is little or no government intervention.
Here’s some of Mark’s description of what we can learn from his chart.
I’ve updated the chart above with price changes through the end of last year. During the most recent 21-year period from January 2000 to December 2020, the CPI for All Items increased by 54.6% and the chart displays the relative price increases over that time period for 14 selected consumer goods and services, and for average hourly wages.…Various observations that have been made about the huge divergence in price patterns over the last several decades… The greater (lower) the degree of government involvement in the provision of a good or service the greater (lower) the price increases (decreases) over time, e.g., hospital and medical costs, college tuition, childcare with both large degrees of government funding/regulation and large price increases vs. software, electronics, toys, cars and clothing with both relatively less government funding/regulation and falling prices.
We find that prices have skyrocketed in areas of the healthcare sector where government plays a big role, especially hospital care.
By contrast, prices have been steady (or even falling!) in areas of the healthcare sector where competitive markets are allowed to operate, most notably for cosmetic procedures.
It’s almost as if it makes sense to have a default assumption that government is the problem rather than the solution.
P.S. While the data in Mark’s chart tell a depressing story about the harmful effect of government intervention, he shares one bit of good news in his article.
The annual increase in college tuition and fees of only 1.4% last year was the smallest annual increase in the history of the CPI for college tuition and fees going back to 1978, and the only annual increase ever below 2%. That increase is far below the average annual increase in college tuition of nearly 7% over the last 42 years. So perhaps the “higher education bubble” is finally starting to show signs of deflating?
1. You spend your own money on yourself.
2. You spend your own money on someone else.
3. You spend someone else’s money on yourself.
4. You spend someone else’s money on someone else.
You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the most for your money.
You can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I’m not so careful about the content of the present, but I’m very careful about the cost.
I can spend somebody else’s money on myself. And if I spend somebody else’s money on myself, then I’m sure going to have a good lunch!
I can spend somebody else’s money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get.
Jason Fried wrote this on Mar 03 2010 There are43 comments.
About Jason Fried
Jason co-founded 37signals back in 1999. He also co-authored REWORK, the New York Times bestselling book on running a “right-sized” business. Co-founded, co-authored… Can he do anything on his own?
And I don’t like Obamacare because it further enriches and empowers Washington’s political class.
But I also like being honest and that means I’m willing to acknowledge that there’s one small part of Obamacare that will have a positive impact.
More specifically, the so-called Cadillac tax on expensive employer-provided health plans will slightly reduce the distortion in the tax code that encourages over-insurance and exacerbates the healthcare system’s pervasive third-party payer problem.
Indeed, we’re seeing some signs of this already, even though the tax preference isn’t capped until 2018. Here are some excerpts from a story published by Fox News, starting with a description of the law.
…companies desperate to avoid a 40 percent ObamaCare “Cadillac tax” are finding ways to shift the costs to workers. The so-called “Cadillac tax,” now four years away, will affect health plans that spend more than $10,200 per worker. “The excise tax, when it hits in 2018, will affect both employers and employees,”said Brian Marcotte, president of the National Business Group on Health.
Allow me to make an important correction before sharing other parts of the story.
Companies aren’t shifting costs to workers. The money currently spent on health insurance policies is part of total employee compensation.
Think of it this way. If a company hires you for a salary of $50,000 and also includes a $10,000 health insurance policy, what’s your total compensation?
If you give an answer other than $60,000, you’re either very bad at math or you have the logic skills of a politician.
So the story should have stated that the Cadillac tax is merely making workers more aware of costs that already exist.
Thanks for letting me vent. Now back to our main point, which is that the Cadillac tax discourages overinsurance, and this is already leading to some positive changes in the marketplace.
Employees will get incentives to reduce costs through such arrangements as wellness programs, including losing weight or stopping smoking. Meanwhile, employers are shifting workers into plans with higher deductibles, just as ObamaCare does in the health care exchanges, and using health savings accounts to help defray the costs.
I’m particularly happy that employers and employees are shifting to plans with higher deductibles. As I’ve explained before, health insurance should cover large, unanticipated costs, such as the onset of cancer or getting injured in a car wreck.
But it shouldn’t cover annual checkups, elective surgery, and other routine and/or predictable expenses.
And we have one other bit of good news. The tax isn’t going to raise nearly as much money as the politicians wanted!
The “Cadillac tax” was originally intended to take effect sooner, but unions and other groups convinced officials to delay it until 2018, reducing the anticipated income from $137 billion to $80 billion over ten years. But many analysts predict it will be far less than that. Henry Aaron of the Brookings Institution said, “before then, it’s expected that most of the businesses that offer that form of insurance will back off and make the insurance less generous, so the tax won’t bite.” …if employers are able to avoid it and less than expected is collected, ObamaCare could fall tens of billions short in paying for itself as promised.
I should hasten to add, by the way, that I’m glad that Obamacare isn’t paying for itself since that simply means lots of taxes to accompany all the additional spending.
I’d be even happier, of course, if we could figure out how to get rid of all the spending as well.
Just in case folks are thinking I’ve gone soft, let’s close today’s post with some humor directed at the rest of Obamacare.
The Affordable Care Act, in its brief time on this earth, has endured its share of storm and stress. The bungled rollout of the federal online interface cost proponents lots of political capital. There have been high-wire legal challenges to surmount. While public approval of the law’s ends remains steadily high, the popularity of the law itself is often recorded as lacking. There have been uneasy periods for Obamacare’s chief proponents as they’ve waited for enrollment milestones to be reached and rate-hike hysteria to be put to bed. (There’s recent news on that front, actually.) And as the law promises so much, over such a long time frame, there will be more uneasy periods to endure for the lawmakers who put their stamp on the reform.
But the simple fact is that some lawmakers voted for Obamacare and some voted against it, and there’s only so far any of them can run from their decision. That’s why I’ve had the occasion to talk about “the Obamacare bet.” The bill’s opponents have largely settled on a claim: The law is going to fail and their admonitions against it will be proven wise and correct. The bill’s supporters should go ahead and stake the opposite claim. Many of those who supported the bill, however, have been reluctant to go “all in” on the decision they made. Especially among those who voted for the law and have since found themselves in a tough electoral race.
Today, however, comes a change. As Greg Sargent reports over at The Plum Line, Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) — currently in a tough re-election race against his Republican opponent, Rep. Tom Cotton — is up with a new ad in which he heralds his yes vote on the Affordable Care Act. You can watch the spot and read the transcript below. While Pryor doesn’t exactly go “all in,” he lays more of his chips on the felt.
DAVID: When Mark was diagnosed with cancer, we thought we might lose him.
MARK: My family and my faith helped me through the rough times.
DAVID: But you know what? Mark’s insurance company didn’t want to pay for the treatment that ultimately saved his life.
MARK: No one should be fighting an insurance company while you’re fighting for your life. That’s why I helped pass a law that prevents insurance companies from canceling your policy if you get sick or denying coverage for pre-existing conditions.
(David, by the way, is Mark’s dad as well as a former senator from and governor of Arkansas.)
Now Mark Pryor’s ad could have been a bit bolder. You’ll note that nowhere does he say the words “Obamacare” or “Affordable Care Act,” just that he “pass[ed] a law.” Of course, he does make mention of the law’s most popular features — it prevents people from getting kicked off plans when the time comes to avail themselves of their coverage, and it ends the practice of denying coverage for pre-existing conditions. It’s hard to imagine voters tolerating a return to the status quo ante, which is one of the reasons that it’s been so devilish for the law’s opponents to craft an alternative.
Pryor may have buried the lead in this ad, in fact. As Gallup reported earlier this month, Arkansas leads “all other states in the sharpest reductions in their uninsured rate among adult residents since the healthcare law’s requirement to have insurance took effect at the beginning of the year.”
Republicans will undoubtedly cast this as an acknowledgment that their attacks on Pryor over the law are working and could no longer be ignored. They’ll argue Pryor is, in desperation, using his faith and personal experience as a shield against those attacks. But this misses what’s really going on here. This ad is actually coming at a point where there are signs the anti-Obamacare fires are cooling somewhat. GOP advertising against the law has fallen off sharply, and is surprisingly low in Arkansas.
This is correct. As Bloomberg News’ Heidi Pryzbyla reported earlier this week, Republicans have cut way back on on ads that attack Obamacare, in “a sign that the party’s favorite attack against Democrats is losing its punch.” Pryzbyla continues:
The shift — also taking place in competitive states such as Arkansas and Louisiana — shows Republicans are easing off their strategy of criticizing Democrats over the Affordable Care Act now that many Americans are benefiting from the law and the measure is unlikely to be repealed.
“The Republican Party is realizing you can’t really hang your hat on it,” said Andrew Taylor, a political science professor at North Carolina State University. “It just isn’t the kind of issue it was.”
There is a good reason for this shift. As Matt Yglesias pointed out back in June, the “phony Obamacare debate” — the one that broadly alleged that death panels existed, that the fubar launch of the federal website was the law’s death knell, that enrollment numbers would be way off target — has run its course, leaving only the most fundamental debate of all:
[Obamacare] is a large-scale effort to improve living standards for people in the bottom half of the income distribution by giving them additional economic resources. One of America’s political parties doesn’t like that idea in any non-health context and they don’t like it for health care either. They think the money it costs to provide those subsidies should be taken away, and it should be given to high-income households in the form of tax cuts.
This is an excellent and important policy debate to have. One of the great ideological issues not just of our time and place, but of democratic politics across eras and countries. Should economic resources be distributed more equally or less equally?
Since Yglesias wrote that piece, we’ve seen a brief return to the “phony” debate, thanks to a pair of judges on the D.C. Circuit appeals court, who issued a ruling in the Halbig v. Burwell case contending that (to quote Simon Maloy in Salon) “a single poorly worded snippet of the Affordable Care Act invalidates subsidies for people who purchased health coverage through the federal exchanges.” As Maloy inventively points out, this is a hilariously bad-faith argument to make, akin to George Costanza’s “Moops” argument in “Seinfeld”:
Beyond that, however, we are ultimately left with the discussion that Yglesias mentions as the real underlying debate: whether it is right and proper to redistribute money from the top to the bottom so that those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder can live and work longer without going into catastrophic debt.
This argument’s signature virtue is that — unlike all the “death panels” and doom-saying — it is, legitimately, a good-faith argument. Which may cause one to wonder: Why has it taken so long to burn off all the bad-faith arguments and get down to the real bone of contention? I’d posit that arguing that poor people aren’t morally fit enough to deserve health insurance lacks a certain salability outside the Ayn Rand set.
With that in mind, you might think it’s strange that so many of Obamacare’s proponents have seemed reluctant to take “the Obamacare bet.” I agree! It’s strange. From my perspective, the die has long been cast, so lawmakers who affirmed the bill with their vote may as well own it. Pryor’s ad suggests that perhaps those lawmakers long deemed to be vulnerable due to their votes on the Affordable Care Act may be coming around to this position.
None of this should cause you to expect some sort of sea change in the overall fundamentals of the 2014 election. The GOP is still in great shape for the midterms, and they may even discover that they don’t need an anti-Obamacare blitz to win in November. But that’s really just an even better reason for vulnerable lawmakers who supported the Affordable Care Act to put some sustained ballyhoo behind their decision to vote for the law. Win or lose, may as well remind people where you stood. Pryor’s effort is a lot bolder than most.
___________ Halbig, King and ObamaCare (Michael F. Cannon) Published on Jul 22, 2014 Two federal circuit courts have now ruled on ObamaCare’s health insurance exchanges and have arrived at different conclusions. Michael Cannon, one of the chief architects of this legal challenge, explains what the rulings mean and what’s in store for the future health […]
Arkansas’ own Nick Horton featured on Dan Mitchell’s blog!!! Below is the best video I have ever seen on Obamacare’s lies about Medicaid!!!! An Under-Appreciated Victory over Obamacare July 14, 2014 by Dan Mitchell Let’s enjoy some semi-good news today. We’ve discussed many times why Obamacare is bad news, whether we’re looking at it from […]
_______________ Obamacare increased government spending by expanding Medicaid and big subsidies for private insurance and it will bankrupt country eventually!!! The Hidden Economic Damage of Obamacare June 25, 2014 by Dan Mitchell Obamacare resulted in big increases in the fiscal burden of government (ironically, it would be even worse if Obama hadn’t unilaterally suspended parts of […]
________ Obamacare will explode the budget and we must eliminate it!!! Obamacare is Bad News for Your Wallet Today and Worse News for Your Wallet Tomorrow July 8, 2014 by Dan Mitchell I wrote a few weeks ago about the hidden economic damage of Obamacare, particularly the harm to the job market. Today, let’s get further […]
_________ Obama keeps putting off Obamacare like he was a king!!!! Some of the cartoons below point this out. Dan Mitchell always has great posts about the issues that I care about and he does a good job of picking out editorial cartoons that are very funny too. I really do miss Milton Friedman but […]
________ Will Republicans defeat Obamacare in Arkansas? February 21, 2014 4:24PM Spending Restraint in Arkansas By Nicole Kaeding Share For the fourth day in a row, the Arkansas House of Representatives has refused to approve the yearly appropriation for its Medicaid program, dubbed the “private-option.” If the legislature continues this refusal and reverses its […]
Open letter to President Obama (Part 520) (Emailed to White House on 5-3-13.) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get […]
__________ Obama just made the 18th executive branch’s unilateral change to Obamacare but who will challenge him on it? Obamacare and the Corruption of the Rule of Law February 11, 2014 by Dan Mitchell We’ve reached the stage where Obamacare is the punchline to a bad joke. The law has been a disaster, both for the economy […]
____________ Obamacare Death Panels Kills Jobs more often than people!!! Crying about Obamacare, but also Laughing at Obamacare February 8, 2014 by Dan Mitchell I asked back in September whether all the bad news about Obamacare meant it was time to feel sorry for President Obama and other statists. Some people apparently didn’t realize I was […]
Open letter to President Obama (Part 514) (Emailed to White House on 4-15-13.) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get […]
Analysis: Hoosiers should keep Arkansas coach Eric Musselman in Indiana for the long haul
PAUL MYERBERG | USA TODAY |
It’s too bad Baylor awaits in the Elite Eight, since Arkansas might have a good chance at the Final Four in another region — if transported down to the Midwest, it would be very easy to make a case for the Razorbacks being the team to beat.
As it is, the way Baylor has looked in the opening weekend of the men’s NCAA Tournament paints the Bears not just as the favorites in the South but maybe the best team in the bracket, period, will all due respect to still-unbeaten Gonzaga.
Not to say coach Eric Musselman’s team won’t have a shot: Arkansas can run, shoot and most of all defend, three qualities that in tandem have the No. 3 Razorbacks back in the tournament’s second weekend for the first time since 1996.
Arkansas held Texas Tech to just 36.1% from the field, including 29.2% inside of 3-point range, and came up with several late stops in a 68-66 win to advance to the Sweet 16.
“This is why I came here. I came here to win,” said senior guard Justin Smith, a graduate transfer from Indiana. “And that’s it. And to have it come through, to come through fruition, it’s a testament to all the hard work we put in. We’re just gonna keep on going and see how far we can go.”
But the greatest tournament intrigue surrounding Musselman and the Razorbacks comes from another source.
The job at Indiana is open, again, and the Hoosiers are in the market for a savior, again, and — yeah, again — overtures pitched to some of the biggest names in coaching, college and otherwise, have been rebuffed.
Instead of dangling the job at current New York Knicks assistant Mike Woodson, an Indiana graduate who played for Bobby Knight, the Hoosiers should keep things simple: Don’t let Musselman leave the state.
He checks the boxes.
Musselman has spent more than three decades in coaching across an alphabet soup of competition levels: the NCAA, NBA, CBA, USBL and D-League.
The past nine seasons have come on the college level, as an assistant at Arizona State and LSU and the head coach at Nevada (2015-19) and with the Razorbacks.
He’s won at least 20 games in each of his six seasons as head coach and reached each of the past four tournaments, from 2016-18 with the Wolf Pack and again in his second year at Arkansas.
Justin Smith embraces coach Eric Musselman after Arkansas defeated Texas Tech in the second round of the 2021 NCAA Tournament at Hinkle Fieldhouse.
MARC LEBRYK, USA TODAY SPORTS
Musselman’s college teams have improved every season: Nevada won 24 games and the CBI championship in his first year — an achievement given the team he inherited won nine games a year earlier — and then 28 games in each of the next three, including a Sweet 16 berth in 2017 and a No. 9 ranking in the 2018 preseason Ferris Mowers Coaches Poll.
After going 20-12 overall and 7-11 in the SEC last season, Arkansas is 25-6 with as many NCAA Tournament wins in Indiana’s backyard as the Hoosiers have.
He’s been able to recruit: Arkansas’ 2020 class ranked in the top 10 nationally, according to 247Sports.com.
And if overlooked for much of the regular season even inside the SEC, where most national attention was devoted to Nate Oats and Alabama, Musselman’s team is strong across the board: seventh nationally in scoring offense, 43rd in made 3s, fourth in blocks, ninth in rebounds and seventh in steals, to name a few.
“It shows we can play with anybody. We’re going to be able to adjust and compete,” Smith said.
Musselman is “a coach that allows you the freedom, who allows you to play basketball,” he added. “The main thing, honestly, is just confidence. I think the way we prepare and we practice allows all of us as individuals to have confidence.”
By leading Arkansas past the Red Raiders, Musselman has already extended his stay in Indiana for another week. The Hoosiers should make it more permanent.
Follow colleges reporter Paul Myerberg on Twitter @PaulMyerberg
Razorbacks Remember Legend With Award
Uploaded on Aug 23, 2010
The Brandon Burlsworth Award will honor the former hog’s memory and help walk on hogs succeed.
This article was published August 26, 2016 at 5:45 a.m.
PHOTO BY GREATER PRODUCTIONS
Actor Christopher Severio portrays Brandon Burlsworth in “Greater,” which opens Friday nationwide.
Greater tells the story of University of Arkansas standout Brandon Burlsworth, who is touted in the film’s promotional materials as “the greatest walk-on in college football history.” He may well have been.
After redshirting his first year, he not only won a scholarship but became the Razorbacks’ starting right guard, and in his senior year, an All-American. He was drafted in the third round by the Indianapolis Colts. And had he lived, there’s no reason to believe he wouldn’t have started for the Colts his rookie year. He probably would have enjoyed a relatively long and lucrative career in the National Football League.
By all accounts, Burlsworth was an unfailingly polite, possibly obsessive-compulsive young man possessed of remarkable character and dignity. He was a hard worker, the antithesis of the stereotype of the entitled star athlete. He was the first Razorback player to earn a master’s degree (in business administration) before playing in his final game for the university. He had a deep and abiding Christian faith.
But in what would seem like a heavy-handed plot twist had it appeared in a young adult novel, Burlsworth died before he could play a single professional football game. Just 11 days after being drafted by the Colts, on April 28, 1999, a Wednesday afternoon, Burlsworth was returning to his hometown of Harrison after working out in the Razorbacks’ facility in Fayetteville. Near Alpena, on a relatively flat stretch of U.S. 412, his car clipped an oncoming 18-wheeler, then swerved and crashed head-on into a second truck. He was on his way to take his mother to church.
If you live in Arkansas, you probably know all this. If you don’t, you might be skeptical that anyone could be quite as earnest and decent as Burlsworth was. Maybe the unlikeliest thing about the film is how little truth it seems to change for dramatic purposes. While there is some compression of events and a brother (Grady Burlsworth) largely elided from the story, some of what seems Hollywooded up actually happened. Brandon’s mother, Barbara (Leslie Easterbrook), really was in the habit of telling her son to watch out for “big ol’ trucks” whenever he embarked on a journey. Brandon’s teammates really did drive him crazy by messing with the pens he’d laid out just so on his desk.
What’s most admirable about Greater is that, although it belongs to that class of films that is marketed (and sometimes dismissed) as “faith-based,” is that it insists on a certain humanity for the lineman. As in life, this Burlsworth isn’t perfect. We first meet him as a preteen (played by Ethan Waller), a junk-food loving football fan with no perceptible athletic talent — a slow, soft fat kid. (In real life, Burlsworth was a late bloomer. He didn’t develop into a star until his junior year at Harrison High. At the NFL combine in February 1999 he’d run 40 yards in 4.88 seconds, best among offensive linemen, and bench-pressed 225 pounds 28 times. And though he weighed 308 pounds and was just shy of 6 feet, 4 inches, he could dunk a basketball with two hands from a standing start. He wasn’t without God-given talent.)
As a film, Greater shares with its subject a certain straight-down-the-middle conventionality. Fayetteville-based producer Brian Reindl, a first-time filmmaker who worked 11 years on this project, seemed determined not to make a mistake. Director David Hunt similarly plays it safe, and even cinematographer Gabe Mayhan — who has demonstrated an extraordinary eye on other projects (including Josh Miller and Miles Miller’s All the Birds Have Flown South) — seems content to default to Hallmark Hall of Fame tastefulness. The football action scenes are especially well done. Lots of local faces pop up in small roles. The result is a fine, old-fashioned movie that hits all the expected beats and will no doubt be well received by people familiar with Burlsworth’s story.
But it’s not an adventurous film, and one might have hoped for a bit more nuance in the Brandon character (played as a young man with a certain appropriate stolidity by Louisiana actor Christopher Severio). Brandon’s good and humble and perhaps a little too naive — the only scene in the movie that feels false is his reaction to a few sips of alcohol his mischievous teammates slip him — but not particularly interesting. He believes what his mama, his coaches and his pastor tell him. He doesn’t need to see the big picture.
The filmmakers have enough sense to provide us with an alternate to this limited carrier of our empathy by framing the story through the eyes of Marty Burlsworth, Brandon’s much older brother. Marty, played by veteran character actor Neal McDonough (probably best known for his portrayal of super-villain Damien Darhkin the DC Comics-derived series Arrow, Flash and Legends of Tomorrow, though he also had a memorable arc as a bad guy on the 2012 season of Justified), is a fairly complex figure who undergoes an understandable crisis of faith after the death of his younger brother. Forcing the events of the film through the prism of Marty gives the movie whatever dramatic tension it achieves. (While McDonough seems too old to play a character who, in the movie’s earliest set scenes, is in his mid-to late-20s, he does some subtle work in what is by design not a terribly nuanced picture.)
In the film’s biggest departure from verisimilitudinous story-telling, a tempter figure, The Farmer (played by Justified veteran Nick Searcy), is introduced to call Marty’s attention to the random cruelty present in the universe. While it’s not the most original trope, it’s a lot of fun to watch these actors act.
In the end, Greater is not a movie for people who look to movies for something more than uplift or assurance, but that’s all right. It does no disservice to the memory of a young man who died before he should have, and it’s unlikely anyone will argue that it presents a false picture of Brandon Burlsworth. If it inspires people, especially young people, to do right and work hard, then it has accomplished more than a lot of more artfully conceived and daring movies.
MovieStyle on 08/26/2016
Print Headline: By the playbook; Film about former Razorback Burlsworth scores with authenticity
Brandon was a walk on turned All American at the University of Arkansas. He was drafted by the Indianapolis Colts and 11 days later was tragically killed in a car accident. The Brandon Burlsworth Foundation was founded in his name and has several programs: The Burls Kids program takes underprivileged children to all Arkansas Razorback and Indianapolis Colts home games. The BBF in partnership with Walmart provides eye care to 14,000 pre-K thru 12th grade students whose working families are trying, but still cannot afford extras like eye care and do not qualify for state funded programs. We hold football camps each year in Harrison and Little Rock and we have several football scholarship and awards including the Burlsworth Trophy, a national award given out to the most outstanding Division One college football player who began his career as a walk-on.
First Person video of Joplin MO tornado 5/22/11 The video i took while at Fastrip on east 20th street. We huddled in the back of the store until the glass got sucked out , then ran into the walk in storage fridge. Sorry for the lack of visuals but the audio is pretty telling of […]
God On Trial Uploaded on Jan 8, 2012 God on Trial is a 2008 BBC/WGBH Boston television play written by Frank Cottrell Boyce, starring Antony Sher, Rupert Graves and Jack Shepherd. The play takes place in Auschwitz during World War II. The Jewish prisoners put God on trial in absentia for abandoning the Jewish […]
On November 21, 2014 I received a letter from Nobel Laureate Harry Kroto and it said: …Please click on this URL http://vimeo.com/26991975 and you will hear what far smarter people than I have to say on this matter. I agree with them. Harry Kroto _________________ Below you have picture of Dr. Harry Kroto: ____________ Debate […]
On November 21, 2014 I received a letter from Nobel Laureate Harry Kroto and it said: …Please click on this URL http://vimeo.com/26991975 and you will hear what far smarter people than I have to say on this matter. I agree with them. Harry Kroto _________________ Below you have picture of Dr. Harry Kroto: ____________ Debate […]
______ Francis Schaeffer “BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY” Whatever…HTTHR The Roots of Hitler’s Evil by Richard Weikart Professor of History California State Univ., Stanislaus [This essay first appeared in Books and Culture: A Christian Review (Mar./Apr. 2001): 18-21] What shaped the life of the man who today is the symbol of evil and brutality, but who […]
Peter May rightly notes, “Peter Singer is arguably the most famous and influential modern philosopher, offering the most radical challenge to traditional Judeo-Christian values.” Francis Schaeffer “BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY” Whatever…HTTHR Dr. Francis Schaeffer: Whatever Happened to the Human Race Episode 1 ABORTION Published on Jan 10, 2015 Whatever Happened to the Human Race? Abortion […]
On November 21, 2014 I received a letter from Nobel Laureate Harry Kroto and it said: …Please click on this URL http://vimeo.com/26991975 and you will hear what far smarter people than I have to say on this matter. I agree with them. Harry Kroto _________________ Below you have picture of 1996 Chemistry Nobel Prize Winner Dr. […]
As progressives push hard for Democrats to eliminate the legislative filibuster after gaining control of the Senate, House and the presidency, many Democratic senators are distancing themselves from a letter they signed in 2017 backing the procedure.
Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Chris Coons, D-Del., led a letter in 2017 that asked Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to preserve the legislative filibuster. As it’s existed for decades, the filibuster requires 60 votes in order to end debate on a bill and proceed to a final vote.
“We are writing to urge you to support our efforts to preserve existing rules, practices, and traditions” on the filibuster, the letter said.
Besides Collins and Coons, 59 other senators joined on the letter. Of that group, 27 Democratic signatories still hold federal elected office. Twenty-six still hold their Senate seats, and Vice President Harris assumed her new job on Jan. 20, vacating her former California Senate seat.
Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., speaks as the Senate Judiciary Committee hears from legal experts on the final day of the confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 15, 2020. Coons has softened his support for the legislative filibuster in recent years after leading an effort to protect it in 2017. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
But now, the momentum among Senate Democrats is for either full abolition of the filibuster or significantly weakening it. President Biden endorsed the latter idea Tuesday, announcing his support for a “talking filibuster.”
“I don’t think that you have to eliminate the filibuster, you have to do it what it used to be when I first got to the Senate back in the old days,” Biden told ABC. “You had to stand up and command the floor, you had to keep talking.”
The legislative filibuster has been a 60-vote threshold for what is called a “cloture vote” — or a vote to end debate on a bill — meaning that any 41 senators could prevent a bill from getting to a final vote. If there are not 60 votes, the bill cannot proceed.
The “talking filibuster” — as it was most recently seriously articulated by Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., in 2012 — would allow 41 senators to prevent a final vote by talking incessantly, around-the-clock, on the Senate floor. But once those senators stop talking, the threshold for a cloture vote is lowered to 51.
Harris’ office confirmed to Fox News Wednesday that she is now aligned with Biden on the filibuster issue. She’d previously taken an even more hostile position to the filibuster, saying she would fully “get rid” of it “to pass a Green New Deal” at a CNN town hall in 2019.
The legislative filibuster has been a 60-vote threshold for what is called a “cloture vote” — or a vote to end debate on a bill — meaning that any 41 senators could prevent a bill from getting to a final vote. If there are not 60 votes, the bill cannot proceed.
The “talking filibuster” — as it was most recently seriously articulated by Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., in 2012 — would allow 41 senators to prevent a final vote by talking incessantly, around-the-clock, on the Senate floor. But once those senators stop talking, the threshold for a cloture vote is lowered to 51.
Harris’ office confirmed to Fox News Wednesday that she is now aligned with Biden on the filibuster issue. She’d previously taken an even more hostile position to the filibuster, saying she would fully “get rid” of it “to pass a Green New Deal” at a CNN town hall in 2019.
Coons, who led the 2017 letter along with Collins, has also distanced himself from his previous stance.
Vice President Kamala Harris attends a ceremonial swearing-in for Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., as President Pro Tempore of the Senate on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Feb. 4, 2021. Harris has changed her stance on the legislative filibuster since signing a letter in 2017 backing it. (Michael Reynolds/Pool via AP) (AP)
“I’m going to try my hardest, first, to work across the aisle,” he said in September when asked about ending the filibuster. “Then, if, tragically, Republicans don’t change the tune or their behavior at all, I would.”
Fox News reached out to all of the other 26 Democratic signatories of the 2017 letter, and they all either distanced themselves from that position or did not respond to Fox News’ inquiry.
“Less than four years ago, when Donald Trump was President and Mitch McConnell was the Majority Leader, 61 Senators, including more than 25 Democrats, signed their names in opposition to any efforts that would curtail the filibuster,” a GOP aide told Fox News. “Other than the occupant of the White House, and the balance of power in the Senate, what’s changed?”
“I’m interested in getting results for the American people, and I hope we will find common ground to advance key priorities,” Sen. Tim Kaine. D-Va., said in a statement. “If Republicans try to use arcane rules to block us from getting results for the American people, then we’ll have a conversation at that time.”
Added Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va: “I am still hopeful that the Senate can work together in a bipartisan way to address the enormous challenges facing the country. But when it comes to fundamental issues like protecting Americans from draconian efforts attacking their constitutional right to vote, it would be a mistake to take any option off the table.”
“Senator Stabenow understands the urgency of passing important legislation, including voting rights, and thinks it warrants a discussion about the filibuster if Republicans refuse to work across the aisle,” Robyn Bryan, a spokesperson for Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., said.
FILE – In this Oct. 26, 2018, file photo, Sen.Bob Casey, D-Pa., speaks to reporters in the studio of KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh. Casey has reversed his stance on the legislative filibuster since signing a 2017 letter in support of it. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)
Representatives for Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., pointed to recent comments he made on MSNBC.
“Yes, absolutely,” Casey said when asked if he would support a “talking filibuster” or something similar. “Major changes to the filibuster for someone like me would not have been on the agenda even a few years ago. But the Senate does not work like it used to.”
“I hope any Democratic senator who’s not currently in support of changing the rules or altering them substantially, I hope they would change their minds,” Casey added.
Representatives for Sen. Angus King, I-Vt., who caucuses with Democrats, meanwhile, references a Bangor Daily News editorial that said King was completely against the filibuster in 2012 but now believes it’s helpful in stopping bad legislation. It said, however, that King is open to “modifications” similar to a talking filibuster.
The senators who did not respond to questions on their 2017 support of the filibuster were Sens. Joe Manchin. D-W.Va.; Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.; Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.; Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H.; Michael Bennet, D-Colo.; Martin Heinrich, D-N.M.; Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio; Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.; Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.; Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii; Cory Booker, D-N.J.; Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.; Maize Hirono, D-Hawaii; John Tester, D-Mont.; Tom Carper, D-Del.; Maggie Hassan, D-N.H.; Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill.; Jack Reed, D-R-I.; Ed Markey, D-Mass.; Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.; and Bob Menendez, D-N.J.
Some of these senators, however, have addressed the filibuster in other recent comments.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., on Wednesday was asked if she supported changing the filibuster threshold by CNN and said she is still opposed to the idea. “Not at this time,” Feinstein said.
Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2020, during the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Hirono has changed her opinion on the legislative filibuster since signing a 2017 letter supporting it. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Sen. Maize Hirono, D-Hawaii, meanwhile said last week she is already for getting rid of the current 60-vote threshold and thinks other Democrats will sign on soon.
“If Mitch McConnell continues to be totally an obstructionist, and he wants to use the 60 votes to stymie everything that President Biden wants to do and that we Democrats want to do that will actually help people,” Hirono said, “then I think the recognition will be among the Democrats that we’re gonna need to.”
The most recent talk about either removing or significantly weakening the filibuster was spurred by comments from Manchin that appeared to indicate he would be open to a talking filibuster. He said filibustering a bill should be more “painful” for a minority.
Manchin appeared to walk back any talk of a talking filibuster on Wednesday, however.
“You know where my position is,” he said. “There’s no little bit of this and a little bit — there’s no little bit here. You either protect the Senate, you protect the institution and you protect democracy or you don’t.”
Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., both committed to supporting the current form of the filibuster earlier this year. Sinema was not in the Senate in 2017.
Senate Minority Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said their comments gave him the reassurance he needed to drop a demand that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., put filibuster protections into the Senate’s organizing resolution.
But with Manchin seeming to flake at least in the eyes of some, other Democrats are beginning to push harder for filibuster changes.
—
I read something about your views on abortion:
Pro-life leaders express outrage after Senate fails to pass 20-week abortion ban
Posted: Thursday, February 15, 2018 12:00 amBY RICK SNIZEK, EXECUTIVE EDITOR
“Rhode Islanders should be outraged that pro-abortion Senators Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse refused to protect late-term unborn babies who can feel pain, as Representatives Langevin and Cicilline refused when the bill was voted upon last October in the House,” Bracy said in a statement to Rhode Island Catholic.
Bracy cited a recent Marist poll on abortion which shows that 63 percent of Americans support a ban on abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy, including 56 percent of Democrats and 56 percent of those who identify as “pro-choice.”
“It is clear that the members of our congressional delegation have taken an extreme position on abortion and are out of touch with the people,” Bracy said.
Owens said she was “truly disappointed” by Senator Reed’s decision to oppose the defense of human life, which is a tenet of his faith.
“While Mr. Reed had an opportunity to stand for human life, he has once again taken a hard stand against life in its most vulnerable stage, that of an unborn child,” she said.
“This is a huge disappointment and disregard for an innocent unborn child who can feel extreme pain. What happened to human rights and dignity and the inalienable right to life? Doesn’t that mean it cannot be given or taken away?”
Although three Democrats supported the bill — Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Joe Donnelly of Indiana — Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine voted against it.
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops decried the Democrats’ filibuster of the bill.
Senator I wanted to talk to you about abortion.
Carl Sagan asked:
Does a woman’s “innate right to control her own body” encompass the right to kill a near-term fetus who is, for all intents and purposes, identical to a newborn child?… it is the beginning of a slippery slope. If it is impermissible to abort a pregnancy in the ninth month, what about the eighth, seventh, sixth…?
C. Everett Koop asserted:
Our question to a proabortion doctor who would not kill a newborn baby is this: “Would you then kill this infant a minute before he was born, or a minute before that, or a minute before that?” At what point in time can one consider life to be worthless and the next minute precious and worth saving?
Francis Schaeffer went on to say:
A much more serious example of this schizophrenic mentality is that we will transport a newborn baby, who is premature and has a congenital defect incompatible with life, to a hospital a considerable distance away–so that a sophisticated team of doctors and nurses can correct that defect and plan for the rehabilitation of the youngster. Meanwhile, in a number of other hospitals within gunshot distance of that center, other medical personnel are destroying perfectly normal infants in the womb.
THE GROWTH OF HUMAN LIFE
Our reasons against abortion are logical as well as moral. It is impossible for anyone to say when a developing fetus becomes viable, that is, has the ability to exist on its own. Smaller and smaller premature infants are being saved each year! There was a day when a 1000-gram preemie has no chance; now 50 percent of preemies under 1000 grams are being saved. Theoretically, there once was a point beyond which technology could not be expected to go in salvaging premature infants—but with further technological advances, who knows what the limits may be! The eventual possibilities are staggering.
The logical approach is to go back to the sperm and the egg. A sperm has twenty-three chromosomes; even though it is alive and can fertilize an egg, it can never make another sperm. An egg also has twenty-three chromosomes, and it can never make another egg. Thus, we have sperm that cannot reproduce and eggs that cannot reproduce unless they get together. Once the union of a sperm and an egg occurs and the twenty-three chromosomes of each are brought together into one cell that has forty-six chromosomes, that one cell has all the DNA (the whole genetic code) that will, if not interrupted, make a human being.
Our question to a proabortion doctor who would not kill a newborn baby is this: “Would you then kill this infant a minute before he was born, or a minute before that, or a minute before that?” At what point in time can one consider life to be worthless and the next minute precious and worth saving?
(Page 297)
Having already mentioned the union of sperm and egg to give forty-six chromosomes, let us briefly review the development of a baby. At twenty-one days, the first irregular beats occur in the developing heart, long before the mother is sure she is pregnant. Forty-five days after conception, electroencephalographic waves can be picked up from the baby’s developing brain.
By the ninth and tenth weeks, the thyroid and the adrenal glands are functioning. The baby can squint, swallow, and move his tongue. The sex hormones are already present. By twelve or thirteen weeks, he has fingernails; he sucks his thumb and will recoil from pain. His fingerprints, on the hands which have already formed, will never change throughout his lifetime except for size. Legally, it is understood that an individual’s fingerprints distinguish him as a separate identity and are the most difficult characteristic to falsify.
In the fourth month the growing baby is eight to ten inches long. The fifth month is a time of lengthening and strengthening. Skin, hair, and nails grow. Sweat glands come into being, oil glands excrete. This is the month in which the mother feels the infant’s movements.
In the sixth month the developing baby responds to light and sound. He can sleep and awaken. He gets hiccups and can hear the beat of his mother’s heart. Survival outside the womb is now possible. In the seventh month the nervous system becomes much more complex. The infant is about sixteen inches long and weighs about three pounds. The eighth and ninth months see a fattening of the baby.
We do not know how anyone who has seen the remarkable films of the intrauterine development of the human embryo can still maintain that the product of an abortion consists of just some membranes or a part of the woman’s body over which she has complete control–or indeed anything other than a human life within the confines of a tiny body. At the very least we must admit that an embryo is not simply an extension of another person’s body; it is something separate and uniquely irreplaceable. Another good reason we should not view the unborn baby as an extension of the woman’s body is that it did not originate only from the woman. The baby would not exist without the man’s seed.
(Page 298)
We are convinced that the reason the Supreme Court decision for abortion-on-demand never came to grips with the issue of the viability of the human fetus is that its viability (this is, ability to live outside of the womb on its own) is really not the important point.
Viable or not, the single-celled fertilized egg will develop into a human being unless some force destroys its life. We should add that biologists take the uniform position that life begins at conception; there is no logical reason why the proabortionist should try to arrive at a different definition when he is talking about people, the highest form of all biological creatures. After conception, no additional factor is necessary at a later time. All that makes up the adult is present as the ovum and the sperm are united–the whole genetic code is present.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733 everettehatcher@gmail.com
(Emailed to White House on 12-21-12.) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Milton Friedman, President Obama, spending out of control, Taxes | Edit | Comments (0)
(Emailed to White House on 12-21-12.) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Milton Friedman, President Obama, Ronald Reagan, spending out of control, Taxes | Edit | Comments (0)
(Emailed to White House on 12-21-12) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in President Obama, Ronald Reagan, spending out of control, Taxes | Edit | Comments (0)
The federal government has a spending problem and Milton Friedman came up with the negative income tax to help poor people get out of the welfare trap. It seems that the government screws up about everything. Then why is President Obama wanting more taxes? _______________ Milton Friedman – The Negative Income Tax Published on […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in President Obama, spending out of control, Taxes | Edit | Comments (0)
I was sad to read that the Speaker John Boehner has been involved in punishing tea party republicans. Actually I have written letters to several of these same tea party heroes telling them that I have emailed Boehner encouraging him to listen to them. Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ),Justin Amash (R-MI), and Tim Huelskamp (R-KS). have been contacted […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Speaker of the House John Boehner, spending out of control | Edit | Comments (0)
Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute in his article, “Hitting the Ceiling,” National Review Online, March 7, 2012 noted: After all, despite all the sturm und drang about spending cuts as part of last year’s debt-ceiling deal, federal spending not only increased from 2011 to 2012, it rose faster than inflation and population growth combined. […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in spending out of control, Taxes| Edit | Comments (0)
Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute in his article, “Hitting the Ceiling,” National Review Online, March 7, 2012 noted: After all, despite all the sturm und drang about spending cuts as part of last year’s debt-ceiling deal, federal spending not only increased from 2011 to 2012, it rose faster than inflation and population growth combined. […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in spending out of control, Taxes| Edit | Comments (0)
Some of the heroes are Mo Brooks, Martha Roby, Jeff Flake, Trent Franks, Duncan Hunter, Tom Mcclintock, Devin Nunes, Scott Tipton, Bill Posey, Steve Southerland and those others below in the following posts. THEY VOTED AGAINST THE DEBT CEILING INCREASE IN 2011 AND WE NEED THAT TYPE OF LEADERSHIP NOW SINCE PRESIDENT OBAMA HAS BEEN […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in spending out of control, Taxes| Edit | Comments (0)
I hated to see that Allen West may be on the way out. ABC News reported: Nov 7, 2012 7:20am What Happened to the Tea Party (and the Blue Dogs?) Some of the Republican Party‘s most controversial House members are clinging to narrow leads in races where only a few votes are left to count. […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Rep Himes and Rep Schweikert Discuss the Debt and Budget Deal Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute in his article, “Hitting the Ceiling,” National Review Online, March 7, 2012 noted: After all, despite all the sturm und drang about spending cuts as part of last year’s debt-ceiling deal, federal spending not only increased from 2011 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in spending out of control, Taxes| Edit | Comments (0)
Milton Friedman PBS Free to Choose 1980 Vol 4 of 10 From Cradle to Grave
Milton Friedman – Whats wrong with welfare? (Q&A)
Free To Choose – Milton Friedman on The Welfare System (1978) | Thomas S…
Milton Friedman Speaks: What is Wrong with the Welfare State? (B1229) – …
March 23, 2021
Office of Barack and Michelle Obama P.O. Box 91000 Washington, DC 20066
Dear President Obama,
I wrote you over 700 letters while you were President and I mailed them to the White House and also published them on my blog http://www.thedailyhatch.org .I received several letters back from your staff and I wanted to thank you for those letters.
There are several issues raised in your book that I would like to discuss with you such as the minimum wage law, the liberal press, the cause of 2007 financial meltdown, and especially your pro-choice (what I call pro-abortion) view which I strongly object to on both religious and scientific grounds, Two of the most impressive things in your book were your dedication to both the National Prayer Breakfast (which spoke at 8 times and your many visits to the sides of wounded warriors!!
I have been reading your autobiography A PROMISED LAND and I have been enjoying it.
Let me make a few comments on it, and here is the first quote of yours I want to comment on:
As our society grew more complex, more and more of the government’s function took the form of social insurance, with each of us chipping in through our tax dollars to protect ourselves collectively—for disaster relief if our house was destroyed in a hurricane; unemployment insurance if we lost a job; Social Security and Medicare to lessen the indignities of old age; reliable electricity and phone service for those who lived in rural areas where utility companies wouldn’t otherwise make a profit; public schools and universities to make education more egalitarian. It worked, more or less. In the span of a generation and for a majority of Americans, life got better, safer, more prosperous, and more just. A broad middle class flourished. The rich remained rich, if maybe not quite as rich as they would have liked, and the poor were fewer in number, and not as poor as they’d otherwise have been. And if we sometimes debated whether taxes were too high or certain regulations were discouraging innovation, whether the “nanny state” was sapping individual initiative or this or that program was wasteful, we generally understood the advantages of a society that at least tried to offer a fair shake to everyone and built a floor beneath which nobody could sink. Maintaining this social compact, though, required trust. It required that we see ourselves as bound together, if not as a family then at least as a community, each member worthy of concern and able to make claims on the whole. It required us to believe that whatever actions the government might take to help those in need were available to you and people like you; that nobody was gaming the system and that the misfortunes or stumbles or circumstances that caused others to suffer were ones to which you at some point in your life might fall prey.
Dana Milbank is a snarky leftist who writes for the Washington Post, but I have to give him credit for an amusing column today about the new big-brother diet guidelines from our incompetent federal government. Here are a few excerpts.
In the late 1970s, before the government began telling us what to eat, 15 percent of adults and 4 percent of children were obese. Now, after 30 years of Department of Agriculture (USDA) dietary guidelines, 34 percent of adults and 20 percent of children are obese. …Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack was a nutrition evangelist Monday morning as he rolled out the latest version of the dietary guidelines at George Washington University. …Vilsack said he can help fellow Americans to do the same – as long as they are willing to share with the government a few intimate details about themselves, such as how much they weigh, every morsel of food that passes their lips, and how they occupy themselves every minute of the day and night. …Undoubtedly, Americans would be healthier if they would follow the recommendations, but this sounds like TMI at the USDA. Using the drop-down “activity” menu on the website, you are asked to enter how many minutes a day you do such things as “dressing/undressing,” “sitting on toilet,” “sleeping,” “sitting quietly and watching television,” “slow dancing,” “singing in church,” “casino gambling,” “coal mining,” “washing dishes,” “wrestling” and “butchering animals.”
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733 everettehatcher@gmail.com
President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. There have […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers, President Obama | Edit |Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
President Obama Speaks at The Ohio State University Commencement Ceremony Published on May 5, 2013 President Obama delivers the commencement address at The Ohio State University. May 5, 2013. You can learn a lot about what President Obama thinks the founding fathers were all about from his recent speech at Ohio State. May 7, 2013, […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers, President Obama | Edit | Comments (0)
Dr. C. Everett Koop with Bill Graham. Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit |Comments (1)
America’s Founding Fathers Deist or Christian? – David Barton 4/6 There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Tagged governor of connecticut, john witherspoon, jonathan trumbull | Edit | Comments (1)
3 Of 5 / The Bible’s Influence In America / American Heritage Series / David Barton There were 55 gentlemen who put together the constitution and their church affliation is of public record. Greg Koukl notes: Members of the Constitutional Convention, the most influential group of men shaping the political foundations of our nation, were […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
I do not think that John Quincy Adams was a founding father in the same sense that his father was. However, I do think he was involved in the early days of our government working with many of the founding fathers. Michele Bachmann got into another history-related tussle on ABC’s “Good Morning America” today, standing […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Arkansas Times, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit |Comments (0)
I truly believe that many of the problems we have today in the USA are due to the advancement of humanism in the last few decades in our society. Ronald Reagan appointed the evangelical Dr. C. Everett Koop to the position of Surgeon General in his administration. He partnered with Dr. Francis Schaeffer in making the […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ____________ The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This book really helped develop my political […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
The Daily Hatch 
Jason Fried wrote this on Mar 03 2010 There are 43 comments.