Tim Pawlenty visited Arkansas last week. In the video clip above he really jumps on President Obama for increasing wasteful spending by our government to new heights.
I wanted to include some posts from the article “Excerpts: Tim Pawlenty’s Courage to Stand.” Former Minnesota Governor Discusses Losing the VP Slot to Sarah Palin and How President Obama ‘Broke His Promise’ in His New Book:”
In his new autobiography, former Gov. Tim Pawlenty reflects on his evolving political and personal life, from his humble upbringing in St. Paul, Minn., to the governor’s mansion. An evangelical Christian and a booming voice for the Republican party, Pawlenty has said several times he is strongly considering a presidential bid in 2012.
Read excerpts from his book, “Courage to Stand: An American Story,” below:
Pawlenty on preparing materials for the vice presidential vetting process in 2008:
“It was kind of comical at times — the Governor and First Lady in the middle of the night organizing stacks of paper now strewn all over the computer-room floor, trying to make tabs and get it all in the right place, checking to see if the three-hole punch worked and then running out to Kinko’s for photocopies.”
Pawlenty reflecting on McCain’s choice of then- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his 2008 running mate:
“Sarah Palin has become a force of nature in the Republican Party. She inspires people in the conservative cause. She exudes enthusiasm, and that energy is the fuel of grassroots politics. We need that kind of energy and fuel from people all over this country if we want a shot at setting America back on course. While some might still debate McCain’s selection, the undeniable truth is that it took courage to stand up to the critics, the pundits, and the expectations of the media and the Washington establishment and choose Sarah Palin in the first place.”
President and Nancy Reagan with Prince Charles and Princess Diana in the Yellow Oval room. 11/9/85.
I watched the movie “The King’s Speech” with my son Wilson this week. We both really enjoyed it. It basically chronicles the life of King George from 1925 to 1939. It shows how he had to improve his speaking abilities. It also showed his daughter Elizabeth who was about 13 yrs old in 1939 and she took over as Queen in 1950. Her oldest son is prince Charles who is pictured above.
Now that everyone is getting ready for the big royal wedding that is coming up this year, I am reminded of the huge wedding that Charles and Diana had in 1981.
I am going to post portions of this article by Ronald Reagan the next few days.
June 10, 2004, 10:30 a.m.
Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation
Ronald Reagan’s pro-life tract.
Reagan “the pressing issue of infanticide which, as we have seen, flows inevitably from permissive abortion as another step in the denial of the inviolability of innocent human life.”
The Congress has before it several measures that would enable our people to reaffirm the sanctity of human life, even the smallest and the youngest and the most defenseless. The Human Life Bill expressly recognizes the unborn as human beings and accordingly protects them as persons under our Constitution. This bill, first introduced by Senator Jesse Helms, provided the vehicle for the Senate hearings in 1981 which contributed so much to our understanding of the real issue of abortion.
The Respect Human Life Act, just introduced in the 98th Congress, states in its first section that the policy of the United States is “to protect innocent life, both before and after birth.” This bill, sponsored by Congressman Henry Hyde and Senator Roger Jepsen, prohibits the federal government from performing abortions or assisting those who do so, except to save the life of the mother. It also addresses the pressing issue of infanticide which, as we have seen, flows inevitably from permissive abortion as another step in the denial of the inviolability of innocent human life.
I have endorsed each of these measures, as well as the more difficult route of constitutional amendment, and I will give these initiatives my full support. Each of them, in different ways, attempts to reverse the tragic policy of abortion-on-demand imposed by the Supreme Court ten years ago. Each of them is a decisive way to affirm the sanctity of human life.
Milton Friedman on Donahue Show. Friedman influenced me tremendously in 1979 when I read his book Free to Choose. (part 5)
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John Adams’ campaign propaganda against Jefferson said that if Jefferson was elected, “murder, robbery, rape, adultery, and incest will be openly taught and practiced.” They later resolved their differences and wrote many letters to each other.i
It was so cold at Ulysses S. Grant’s presidential inauguration that the canaries that were supposed to sing at the inaugural ball froze to death.k
Milton Friedman’s film series “Free to Choose” Episode on Education part 1. It was Friedman’s voucher plan that was put into practice in Sweden in 1993.
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I went to the Van Buren v. Bryant basketball game the other night at Bryant. I wore a white razorback shirt with the number 32 on it and my grandson Luke Hatcher wore a yellow shirt and sat next to me. Kevin White who is the asst pastor at North Park Baptist is sitting in front of me with the dark green hat and the green shirt. His son Drew White is trying to block a shot by the Bryant player. (Van Buren won the game.)
Drew actually is not only one of the best basketball players I have seen but he also has a scholarship to play football at OBU as a receiver. His brother is presently a receiver at Southern Arkansas University and they will be playing against one another in conference play next year.
Luke’s family just moved here from Van Buren and they were members of North Park Baptist Church which one of the most dynamic churches I have ever visited.
Across the United States, policymakers are increasingly adopting education policies that give families the power to choose their children’s schools. Nonetheless, the idea of providing school vouchers to allow children to attend private schools remains controversial. For instance, congressional leaders and the Obama Administration have tried to end a successful school voucher program for low-income children in Washington, D.C.
American policymakers on the Left and the Right may be surprised to learn that a universal school choice program has taken hold in Sweden. The Heritage Foundation interviewed Thomas Idergard, Program Director of Welfare and Reform Strategy Studies at Timbro,[1] a free-market think tank based in Stockholm.
Dan Lips: Mr. Idergard, thank you very much for taking the time for this interview. Can you please tell us the background of how Sweden’s voucher program came to be? How was it created?
Thomas Idergard: Thank you very much, Mr. Lips, for giving me the opportunity to tell you more about the Swedish model for real school choice—for all.
The Swedish school voucher program was introduced in 1992 by the then Center-Right government. First, the Social Democrats opposed the reform, but after having returned to power in 1994 they not only accepted it but also expanded the legislated compensation level of the voucher. Today there is almost a total national political consensus—with the one and only exception from the small Left (i.e., former Communist) Party—on the foundations of school choice in Sweden.
Since the 1970s, the Swedish school system had declined regarding quality and student attainment. One reason for this was the lack of choice. Only the very rich, who could afford private schools with private tuition fees on top of our very high taxes, had a right to choose. For all the rest, the school was one monolithic organization in which all students were considered to have the same needs and to learn the same way. The lack of choice created a lack of innovation regarding pedagogical concept and ways of learning adapted to different students’ needs. Public schools, run by politicians in the local branch of government (cities and municipalities), were all there was for 99 percent of all students.
The school voucher program was designed to create a market—with competition, entrepreneurship, and innovation—based on the Swedish and Scandinavian tradition of social justice and equality: All families should be able to choose between public and private schools regardless of their economic status or wealth. This equal opportunity philosophy, taken into its full potential, created an education market!
With 15 years of experience, we in Sweden can summarize the effects. Education’s private sector share of students has grown from 1 percent to 10 to 15 percent, depending on grades. In some areas the competition is fierce, with both public and independent schools closing as a result. The variety of independent schools is large in both ownership — from parental cooperatives to corporate chains — and in innovative pedagogy and practice, of which the much-acclaimed Kunskapsskolan is not the only interesting example.
Vouchers are not the sole fix for education — there is no such single reform. But with real competition, independent schools are still generally performing better academically than public schools, even if the differences probably will decrease as their share increases and failing schools disappear. More important perhaps, is that all schools — public and private — perform better in areas where alternatives are plentiful.
As a former Swedish State Secretary of Schools, involved in developing the reform in the 1990s, I often get comments from American friends: “You’re supposed to be the socialists, not us,” they say and ask, “How is it that Sweden, with its egalitarian tradition, has one of the most radical systems for market-driven choice in the world?”
Maybe that is the answer. With our egalitarian tradition, we can’t accept that the right to choose the best school for your child should be reserved just for those who have the means to pay for it.
Mr. Odd Eiken is Executive Vice President of Kunskapsskolan Education, the largest private school provider in Sweden. He was State Secretary of Schools in Sweden 1991-94 and helped develop the nation’s voucher reform.
Princess Diana dancing with John Travolta in the entrance hall at the White House. 11/9/85.
Milton Friedman has been talking about wasteful government spending for years. Take a look at the clip below from the 1979 Phil Donahue Show. He was a great defender of freedom. I love his response to the question concerning those evil rich people who hoard their money!!!!
Razorback Day at the Capital on Feb 16, 2011 and my son met both Bobby Petrino and Frank Broyles. Rett told them that he had four years of eligibility left!!!!
Title: DSC_0047
I am going to post portions of this article by Ronald Reagan the next few days.
June 10, 2004, 10:30 a.m.
Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation
Ronald Reagan’s pro-life tract.
EDITOR’S NOTE: While president, Ronald Reagan penned this article for The Human Life Review, unsolicited. It ran in the Review‘s Spring 1983, issue and is reprinted here with permission.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights
Every legislator, every doctor, and every citizen needs to recognize that the real issue is whether to affirm and protect the sanctity of all human life, or to embrace a social ethic where some human lives are valued and others are not. As a nation, we must choose between the sanctity of life ethic and the “quality of life” ethic.
I have no trouble identifying the answer our nation has always given to this basic question, and the answer that I hope and pray it will give in the future. American was founded by men and women who shared a vision of the value of each and every individual. They stated this vision clearly from the very start in the Declaration of Independence, using words that every schoolboy and schoolgirl can recite:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
We fought a terrible war to guarantee that one category of mankind — black people in America — could not be denied the inalienable rights with which their Creator endowed them. The great champion of the sanctity of all human life in that day, Abraham Lincoln, gave us his assessment of the Declaration’s purpose. Speaking of the framers of that noble document, he said
:
This was their majestic interpretation of the economy of the Universe. This was their lofty, and wise, and noble understanding of the justice of the Creator to His creatures. Yes, gentlemen, to all his creatures, to the whole great family of man. In their enlightened belief, nothing stamped with the divine image and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on. . . They grasped not only the whole race of man then living, but they reached forward and seized upon the farthest posterity. They erected a beacon to guide their children and their children’s children, and the countless myriads who should inhabit the earth in other ages.
He warned also of the danger we would face if we closed our eyes to the value of life in any category of human beings:
I should like to know if taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle and making exceptions to it where will it stop. If one man says it does not mean a Negro, why not another say it does not mean some other man?
When Congressman John A. Bingham of Ohio drafted the Fourteenth Amendment to guarantee the rights of life, liberty, and property to all human beings, he explained that all are “entitled to the protection of American law, because its divine spirit of equality declares that all men are created equal.” He said the right guaranteed by the amendment would therefore apply to “any human being.” Justice William Brennan, writing in another case decided only the year before Roe v. Wade, referred to our society as one that “strongly affirms the sanctity of life.”
Another William Brennan — not the Justice — has reminded us of the terrible consequences that can follow when a nation rejects the sanctity of life ethic:
The cultural environment for a human holocaust is present whenever any society can be misled into defining individuals as less than human and therefore devoid of value and respect.
As a nation today, we have not rejected the sanctity of human life. The American people have not had an opportunity to express their view on the sanctity of human life in the unborn. I am convinced that Americans do not want to play God with the value of human life. It is not for us to decide who is worthy to live and who is not. Even the Supreme Court’s opinion in Roe v. Wade did not explicitly reject the traditional American idea of intrinsic worth and value in all human life; it simply dodged this issue.
Milton Friedman on Donahue Show. Friedman influenced me tremendously in 1979 when I read his book Free to Choose. (part 4)
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Little known presidential facts:
No president has ever been an only child.j
At his first inauguration, George Washington added the “so help me God” to the end of the oath of office.b
Pawlenty will kick off his tour at the National Press Club in Washington on Jan. 13. He then will travel to major presidential election states during the first month, including the early nominating contest states of Iowa and New Hampshire, where he already has invested lots of money and time.
Pawlenty established political action committees in Iowa and New Hampshire, where he doled out more than $118,000 to dozens of candidates for state offices in both states in the November midterm elections. He also donated about $100,000 to 48 Republican candidates for the House of Representatives and $61,000 to 22 Senate candidates through his federal Freedom First PAC, according to an analysis by the campaign finance watchdog Center for Responsive Politics.
Pawlenty’s leadership PAC has raised $3.3 million since he created it in the fall of 2009, an early sign that he was seriously considering a run for the 2012 nomination.
“We’re really proud to have played a role in conservative victories,” said Pawlenty spokesman Alex Conant. “We made a lot of friends in the process and look forward to seeing many of them during the book tour.”
Conant said Pawlenty still has a March timetable for announcing his decision on the 2012 race.
Meanwhile, at least one major political publication in the nation’s capital considers Pawlenty a top-tier challenger. The Hotline, a daily political roundup published by the National Journal, had Pawlenty on its A-list in a November power ranking of 15 potential GOP contenders. The rankings were based on fundraising, campaign organization, strengths and weaknesses.
“He’s certainly got the executive experience and conservative credentials, but early reviews of his public appearances make us wonder whether he’s exciting enough to inspire a primary audience,” the magazine said in ranking Pawlenty No. 2 on its A-list.
More pointedly, Politico observed last summer that Pawlenty suffers from “a charisma deficit and (lacks) a clear rationale for why he should be president.”
Jacobs at the University of Minnesota agrees with that assessment. He said about the only way Pawlenty could gain the nomination would be through attrition.
“He’s the candidate who has least offended people, but he can’t generate any interest,” Jacobs said. Pawlenty still could win the nomination, Jacobs added, “if the other candidates continue to self-destruct and he’s the one who’s left standing.”
The Reagans have tea with Prince Charles and Princess Diana in the White House residence. 11/9/85 .
I remember when I visited London in July of 1981 and the whole town was getting ready for the big royal wedding between Prince Charles and Princess Diana. Above you will see them pictured with President Reagan.
I am going to post portions of this article by Ronald Reagan the next few days.
June 10, 2004, 10:30 a.m.
Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation
Ronald Reagan’s pro-life tract.
Who can forget George Will’s moving account of the little boy who underwent brain surgery six times during the nine weeks before he was born? Who is the patient?
The case against abortion does not rest here, however, for medical practice confirms at every step the correctness of these moral sensibilities. Modern medicine treats the unborn child as a patient. Medical pioneers have made great breakthroughs in treating the unborn — for genetic problems, vitamin deficiencies, irregular heart rhythms, and other medical conditions. Who can forget George Will’s moving account of the little boy who underwent brain surgery six times during the nine weeks before he was born? Who is the patient if not that tiny unborn human being who can feel pain when he or she is approached by doctors who come to kill rather than to cure?
The real question today is not when human life begins, but, What is the value of human life? The abortionist who reassembles the arms and legs of a tiny baby to make sure all its parts have been torn from its mother’s body can hardly doubt whether it is a human being. The real question for him and for all of us is whether that tiny human life has a God-given right to be protected by the law — the same right we have.
What more dramatic confirmation could we have of the real issue than the Baby Doe case in Bloomington, Indiana? The death of that tiny infant tore at the hearts of all Americans because the child was undeniably a live human being — one lying helpless before the eyes of the doctors and the eyes of the nation. The real issue for the courts was not whether Baby Doe was a human being. The real issue was whether to protect the life of a human being who had Down’s Syndrome, who would probably be mentally handicapped, but who needed a routine surgical procedure to unblock his esophagus and allow him to eat. A doctor testified to the presiding judge that, even with his physical problem corrected, Baby Doe would have a “non-existent” possibility for “a minimally adequate quality of life” — in other words, that retardation was the equivalent of a crime deserving the death penalty. The judge let Baby Doe starve and die, and the Indiana Supreme Court sanctioned his decision.
Federal law does not allow federally-assisted hospitals to decide that Down’s Syndrome infants are not worth treating, much less to decide to starve them to death. Accordingly, I have directed the Departments of Justice and HHS to apply civil rights regulations to protect handicapped newborns. All hospitals receiving federal funds must post notices which will clearly state that failure to feed handicapped babies is prohibited by federal law. The basic issue is whether to value and protect the lives of the handicapped, whether to recognize the sanctity of human life. This is the same basic issue that underlies the question of abortion.
The 1981 Senate hearings on the beginning of human life brought out the basic issue more clearly than ever before. The many medical and scientific witnesses who testified disagreed on many things, but not on the scientific evidence that the unborn child is alive, is a distinct individual, or is a member of the human species. They did disagree over the value question, whether to give value to a human life at its early and most vulnerable stages of existence.
Regrettably, we live at a time when some persons do not value all human life. They want to pick and choose which individuals have value. Some have said that only those individuals with “consciousness of self” are human beings. One such writer has followed this deadly logic and concluded that “shocking as it may seem, a newly born infant is not a human being.”
A Nobel Prize winning scientist has suggested that if a handicapped child “were not declared fully human until three days after birth, then all parents could be allowed the choice.” In other words, “quality control” to see if newly born human beings are up to snuff.
Obviously, some influential people want to deny that every human life has intrinsic, sacred worth. They insist that a member of the human race must have certain qualities before they accord him or her status as a “human being.”
Events have borne out the editorial in a California medical journal which explained three years before Roe v. Wade that the social acceptance of abortion is a “defiance of the long-held Western ethic of intrinsic and equal value for every human life regardless of its stage, condition, or status.”
Milton Friedman on Donahue Show. Friedman influenced me tremendously in 1979 when I read his book Free to Choose. (part 3)
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Little known presidential facts:
In 1978, President Jimmy Carter, the first Southerner elected to the presidency following the Civil War, restored U.S. citizenship to Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States of America.i
Samuel Mudd, the doctor who treated the broken ankle of Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth and whose name led to the saying “Your name is mud,” received a presidential pardon in 1869 from Ulysses S. Grant.i
Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty was briefly in town this morning to meet with a select group of Arkansas Republicans. He visited with privately with Lt. Gov. Mark Darr and Secretary of State Mark Martin along with Republican Party Chairman Doyle Webb before meeting with a larger group at the Republican Party offices in Little Rock.
Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty is pictured below with Lt Gov. Mark Darr:
I have always heard that the Republicans choose the guy whose turn it is while the Democrats are attracted to the unknown guys like Jimmy Carter. If that holds true then Pawlenty doesn’t have a chance.
After spending a year traveling the country to campaign for conservative candidates and speak at Republican gatherings — in effect, testing the presidential waters — Tim Pawlenty is about to embark on a new tour as an author.
The outgoing Minnesota governor’s book tour will also be a test of his appeal as a potential Republican presidential candidate in 2012. So far, his star seems as dim as it was when he announced that he would not seek re-election as governor, igniting speculation that he would seek the GOP presidential nomination.
Still, some political experts say Pawlenty is making all the right moves, regardless of whether they are paying off immediately, and that could brighten his chances of breaking into the top tier of potential candidates.
“He’s taking the right steps he needs to take to run a campaign,” said Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota. “But when the question is, ‘Why Pawlenty? What’s the base of support that he has that no one else has?’ It’s hard to answer that right now.”
Despite all that he’s done, Pawlenty has a lot more work to do to become competitive, said Allan Lichtman, a presidential scholar at American University in Washington.
“He’s got a lot of candidates to leapfrog over,” Lichtman said, naming 2012 potentials Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee; former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney; former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee; and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
In the past three to four decades of Republican presidential primary history, no virtual unknown has emerged to capture the GOP nomination, Lichtman said. That is a phenomenon more familiar to Democrats. Capturing a party’s nomination with little national name recognition would require riding a hot issue or building a superior field operation, Lichtman said.
“Democrats have had unknowns come out from nowhere … but Republicans have no history of it,” Lichtman said. “The best model is George McGovern. He did it with both a major issue, the (Vietnam) war, and with grassroots organizing.”
In 1972, McGovern of South Dakota won the Democratic Party nomination on an anti-war platform over establishment favorite Ed Muskie of Maine.
The likelihood of Pawlenty being able to pull off a similar coup is virtually nil, Lichtman said.
“Something strange would have to happen for him to get the nomination,” he said.
But there’s nothing odd about the tour Pawlenty will begin after his book, “Courage To Stand,” in which he writes about growing up in the meatpacking town of South St. Paul, hits the shelves on Jan. 11. He follows Palin and Huckabee as potential 2012 candidates promoting a new book. Gingrich also has a book out.
School choice efforts took a substantial step forward yesterday when Oklahoma’s Democratic Governor Brad Henry signed into law the Lindsey Nicole Henry Scholarships for Students with Disabilities Act. Special needs children in the state will now be able to attend a school of their parents’ choice through the help of vouchers. This program will provide significant opportunity for an estimated 15 percent of Oklahoma children and their families.
Support for the new law came from both sides of the political spectrum. The principal authors of the bill, Sen. Sally Kern (R) and Rep. Jason Nelson (R) were joined by representatives Anastasia Pittman (D), Jabar Shumate (D) and Sen. Patrick Anderson (R), to maneuver the legislation through the state congress and senate before its signing by Governor Henry. Nelson thanked Governor Henry in The Daily Oklahoman for his support and explained that the bill will provide children with special needs “a chance at a better education and a better life.”
Betsy DeVos, chairman of The American Federation for Children, commented on the school choice victory:
We salute Governor Henry for his leadership in enacting this transformational new program, and we congratulate the bipartisan team of Oklahoma legislators who worked together and put politics aside for the sake of helping children with special needs.
Oklahoma joins a growing list of states who offer school choice for parents of special needs children, including Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Ohio, and Utah. The president and CEO of the Foundation for Educational Choice, Robert Enlow encouraged other states to take similar action:
Because of the governor’s and legislature’s courageous acts, Oklahoma’s children with special needs have been afforded a new, better chance to succeed in life. … Other states should emulate Oklahoma and its willingness to put the interests of kids and parents first.
Back in Washington, the Obama administration has been turning back the clock on school choice, working to phase out the highly successful and popular D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. But states like Oklahoma are moving forward with policies to put power in the hands of parents and opportunity in the reach of children. Many families will now have the opportunity to send their children to those schools they feel will best meet their needs. Hopefully the administration will see state choice victories as a sign that it is indeed parents – not bureaucrats or union leaders – who should have control of their children’s educational future.
Andrew Coulson, director of the Center for Education Freedom at the Cato Institute, believes giving businesses tax credits for sending kids to private school is the most effective way to expand school choice. The regulatory and legal obstacles to charters schools and vouchers, he argues, present too many hassles to work around .
Reason.tv sat down with Coulson at the National Summit on Education Reform in Washington, D.C. to talk about the public education tax credits and more.
This interview is part of National School Choice Week, a non-partisan initiative to raise awareness of how competition and choice can transform K-12 education.
Approximately 6 minutes. Filmed by Jim Epstein and Meredith Bragg, and edited by Epstein. Interview by Nick Gillespie.
Go to http://reason.tv for downloadable versions, and subscribe to Reason.tv’s YouTube Channel to receive automatic notification when new material goes live.
Nancy Reagan photo with Lab School Honorees Tom Cruise, Bruce Jenner, Cher and Robert Rauchenberg in State Dining Room. 10/30/85.
My wife Jill loves to watch the reality show “Keeping up with the Kardashians.” Bruce Jenner who is pictured above is one of the main characters in that show since his wife is Kris Jenner is the mother of all the Kardashians.
Oh Bruce! The lovable dad and former Olympic champion is always the last to know what’s going on. Take a look.
I am going to post portions of this article by Ronald Reagan the next few days.
June 10, 2004, 10:30 a.m.
Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation
Ronald Reagan’s pro-life tract.
Reagan: “If you don’t know whether a body is alive or dead, you would never bury it.”
Over the first two years of my Administration I have closely followed and assisted efforts in Congress to reverse the tide of abortion — efforts of Congressmen, Senators and citizens responding to an urgent moral crisis. Regrettably, I have also seen the massive efforts of those who, under the banner of “freedom of choice,” have so far blocked every effort to reverse nationwide abortion-on-demand.
Despite the formidable obstacles before us, we must not lose heart. This is not the first time our country has been divided by a Supreme Court decision that denied the value of certain human lives. The Dred Scott decision of 1857 was not overturned in a day, or a year, or even a decade. At first, only a minority of Americans recognized and deplored the moral crisis brought about by denying the full humanity of our black brothers and sisters; but that minority persisted in their vision and finally prevailed. They did it by appealing to the hearts and minds of their countrymen, to the truth of human dignity under God. From their example, we know that respect for the sacred value of human life is too deeply engrained in the hearts of our people to remain forever suppressed. But the great majority of the American people have not yet made their voices heard, and we cannot expect them to — any more than the public voice arose against slavery — until the issue is clearly framed and presented.
What, then, is the real issue? I have often said that when we talk about abortion, we are talking about two lives — the life of the mother and the life of the unborn child. Why else do we call a pregnant woman a mother? I have also said that anyone who doesn’t feel sure whether we are talking about a second human life should clearly give life the benefit of the doubt. If you don’t know whether a body is alive or dead, you would never bury it. I think this consideration itself should be enough for all of us to insist on protecting the unborn.
Milton Friedman on Donahue Show. Friedman influenced me tremendously in 1979 when I read his book Free to Choose. (part 2)
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Little known presidential facts:
Washington, Jackson, Van Buren, Taylor, Fillmore, Lincoln, A. Johnson, Cleveland, and Truman did not attend college. Harry Truman is the only twentieth-century president without a college degree.b
The capital of Liberia is called Monrovia after President James Monroe.k
