14 June 2012
Why Do We Support Our Troops?
Ever since the end of the Selective Service draft over forty years ago and the institution of an all-volunteer U.S. military, the only thing compelling enlistment in the Army, Navy, Marines or any other public service has been economic need. There are, of course, many volunteers who are natural warriors and are willing and able to develop and use their own skills to participate in seemingly inevitable international or civil violent conflicts or to help allay natural disasters.
Fire-, police- and emergency- men and women perform the bulk of the latter function; but it is questionable whether violent international conflicts would exist were it not for conscripted or volunteer armed forces. On the other hand, it only takes one militarily effective aggressor to make armed forces widely necessary for national self-defense. Organization of world affairs into competing nation-states, of course, is one of the root origins of the violent resolution of conflicts between them, or one of the results of the resort to violence for the resolution of conflicts between men, families, tribes, and larger social groups.
Support for our troops, then, is the way we recognize our failure to find a more rational, gentler, less costly way to resolve differences between us. Until we do, someone has to perform the violent conflict-resolution function at personal risk and danger. The ultimate purpose that our troops accomplish is not a noble one, but honor is awarded to them for making it possible that the rest of us can avoid paying with significantly reduced livelihoods for inattention to solving our problems without war or for not coming up with an alternative.
10 June 2012
Robin Hood and Smashed Windows
John Agrestos’s screed in the 1 June 2012 WSJ sparked a spirited if narrowly populated exchange over the Internet regarding the morality of the tactics used by “conservative” and “liberal” activists. Not only does he disregard the fact that angry downtrodden mobs and the enforcers of oppressive regimes have both been guilty of smashing shop windows over time. But, he also speciously implies that someone told us that materialism and selfishness are the heart of “ordinary Americans.”
As they say in baseball, “It’s better to be lucky than just good.” Those fortunate enough to be among the “one-percent” are a bit small to hold against the rest of humanity the misplaced resentfulness that comes from their ignorance of that truth. Life is indeed unfair. Few of us have the genes that allow us to develop excellence in sports, politics, science, arts, or other areas of accomplishment.
Generosity of spirit is a little easier for the lucky ones to show than it is for those who are at the bottom of the endowment pool. That doesn’t excuse them from civil behavior; but it does demand corrective adjustments to the results of nature’s lottery.
John Agrestos’s screed in the 1 June 2012 WSJ sparked a spirited if narrowly populated exchange over the Internet regarding the morality of the tactics used by “conservative” and “liberal” activists. Not only does he disregard the fact that angry downtrodden mobs and the enforcers of oppressive regimes have both been guilty of smashing shop windows over time. But, he also speciously implies that someone told us that materialism and selfishness are the heart of “ordinary Americans.”
As they say in baseball, “It’s better to be lucky than just good.” Those fortunate enough to be among the “one-percent” are a bit small to hold against the rest of humanity the misplaced resentfulness that comes from their ignorance of that truth. Life is indeed unfair. Few of us have the genes that allow us to develop excellence in sports, politics, science, arts, or other areas of accomplishment.
Generosity of spirit is a little easier for the lucky ones to show than it is for those who are at the bottom of the endowment pool. That doesn’t excuse them from civil behavior; but it does demand corrective adjustments to the results of nature’s lottery.
02 June 2012
Church Is Still Not State
Daniel Henninger’s Opinion essay in the May 31, 2012 Wall Street Journal misleads his readers by confusing the provisions of the HHS Affordable Care Act pre-regulatory guidelines allowing sterilizations and abortifacients with the Act’s mandate that all approved healthcare insurance policies offer free birth control medications. The decision to insure abortion and sterilization services is voluntary for both the insurer and the insured and nothing is mandated as far as payment is concerned. The insured, on the other hand, must be relieved of responsibility to pay anything for birth control medications.
The freedom of religion protected by the U.S. Constitution has never given any church the right to impose its practices on others. Nor, for that matter, does it prevent members of any church from ignoring certain of its strictures such as condemning artificial birth control, which is used by many otherwise practicing Catholics, for example. Freedom of religion is an individual right, a personal privilege, not an institutional authorization.
Even the Act’s mandate of free birth control medications under approved healthcare insurance plans, therefore, does not impinge on the individual’s freedom to practice any religion as he or she wishes. It does prevent the Catholic Church’s hierarchy from using HHS regulations to enforce their own doctrines on their adherents; but they have plenty of other power in their spiritual arsenal.
Daniel Henninger’s Opinion essay in the May 31, 2012 Wall Street Journal misleads his readers by confusing the provisions of the HHS Affordable Care Act pre-regulatory guidelines allowing sterilizations and abortifacients with the Act’s mandate that all approved healthcare insurance policies offer free birth control medications. The decision to insure abortion and sterilization services is voluntary for both the insurer and the insured and nothing is mandated as far as payment is concerned. The insured, on the other hand, must be relieved of responsibility to pay anything for birth control medications.
The freedom of religion protected by the U.S. Constitution has never given any church the right to impose its practices on others. Nor, for that matter, does it prevent members of any church from ignoring certain of its strictures such as condemning artificial birth control, which is used by many otherwise practicing Catholics, for example. Freedom of religion is an individual right, a personal privilege, not an institutional authorization.
Even the Act’s mandate of free birth control medications under approved healthcare insurance plans, therefore, does not impinge on the individual’s freedom to practice any religion as he or she wishes. It does prevent the Catholic Church’s hierarchy from using HHS regulations to enforce their own doctrines on their adherents; but they have plenty of other power in their spiritual arsenal.
