Did you happen to catch the following news items? I am sure that I am not the only person to think that they just possibly might be connected.
Three headlines popped up my computer screen the other day. The first read, “California Bill Would OK families with more than 2 parents.” That appeared right above, “Another California City votes to Declare Bankruptcy.” Within a few hours, I read that Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel, voicing his outrage at the shooting of a child said, “…if you do not think this is about a set of values…Near a child? How dare you?”
I thought values were those old-fashioned things that conservatives try to cram down liberals’ throats. I thought they were to be mocked and discarded. Commonly accepted values used to include the idea that one mother and one father having children after marriage constitute an honorable family. Commonly accepted values were judgmental about those who, except in the most extreme circumstance, lived off someone else’s labor. Commonly accepted values viewed life as sacred and did not determine that if an infant only exited its mother’s body three-quarters of the way, he or she deserved no more protection than yesterday’s trash.
This can’t be the set of values referenced by Mayor Emanuel, could it? After decades of scorning what used to be universally accepted as American values perhaps we no longer have the right to expect a common language. Is it still reasonable to assume that having a gang fight when children are nearby is wrong? (Did the mayor imply that it is o.k. to kill innocent adult bystanders, or other gang members, in a gang fight?) Don’t we have to respect a gang member’s opinion that fulfilling his own desires is more important than caring about the age of someone in the vicinity? Isn’t it judgmental to condemn his view? After all, what is illegal today might not only be legal but also applauded tomorrow.
It is not immediately apparent what damage is done by redefining the family. The California bill is only the latest in a long list of changes made to what were once universally agreed upon family values. One needs a long-term view to see the effects of encouraging the idea that people are entitled to other people’s money, be it through unrealistic pension promises, by pandering to constituents, or by promoting envy. It isn’t necessarily obvious what road one is heading down by treating human life at its beginning and end as a matter for human legislators and public opinion. Up close, these may even look like unrelated issues. They are not.
Values are funny things. It’s hard to get anyone to respect them if they are constantly changing. America may not have always lived up to her founding principles and those of us who claim allegiance to God may betray His ideals in heartbreaking ways. Nevertheless, having standards that one fails to meet allows individuals and society to make corrections. Once values are disconnected from a Source and subject to constant change, they no longer exist. Citing them, even if you are the mayor of Chicago, has no value.
I’m still thinking about your July 4th musing. On that day, as on all others recently, I’ve felt pessimism about the direction which our society — or large parts of it — is taking. Our society is in peril. I look around and see the righteous surrounded by the profane.
The following opinion appeared in a Czeck newspaper: “The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president.”
I’m joining the exodus from California. I fear that the country as a whole is irreparable because too many in its population reject the values on which the country was founded. I suspect that those with like minds need to gather and settle in some place where they can be free and protected. Whether there is such a place, I don’t know.
I think that for some people, “values” is a throw-away term. Use it when you need it, such as when the Mayor gave his tepid speech about “values”. He seems to think street gangs have values and one of them is to protect a child. Hmmmm I figure this is part of the fall. The true absurdity of the things that are going on in the progressive world is enough for me to amost have hope that they wake up one by one. As I listen to the Mayor and some of his like-minded liberal friends I just expect one of them to say mid- sentence “oh my gosh! I am finally listening to myself! Wow, what am I saying!” This absurdity I am hearning has no doubt, strengthened my faith considerably! So I thank God for the opportunity to see this remarkable time in history, and pray we make it through the other side with a real understanding of values!
Your musing this week illustrates once again that if it weren’t for double standards, leftist-socialist liberals wouldn’t have any standards at all.
Why would a leftist-socialist liberal politician like Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel be so passionate in their defense of “a child” while at the same time so callously indifferent to the well being of that same human being right up until the very moment of his or her birth?
Perhaps one reason is how the collectivist politician recognizes the tremendous value of that child AS A HOSTAGE when held before the electorate as they make their demands: “O.K., just hand over your [hard earned income, other private property, God given liberty, Second Amendment rights, etc.] to the state or else the kid gets it!”.
Once “a child” reaches full adulthood, their relative value as a human political prop drops to about zero.
The political kidnapper also has the advantage of a bizarre but very real human psychological phenomenon that we call the Stockholm syndrome. Victims (in this case, the emotionally manipulated electorate) subconsciously compensate for their traumatized emotional state by developing an affinity for the villain.
The liberal politician’s double standard as it applies to prenatal children is explained by their intuitive recognition of a fundamental conflict between any demonstrable affinity for the unborn and the ultimate goal of collectivism. From F.A. Hayek’s 1944 classic The Road to Serfdom, page 232:
“That in this sphere of individual conduct the effect of collectivism has been almost entirely destructive is both inevitable and undeniable. A movement whose main promise is the relief from responsibility cannot but be antimoral in its effect, however lofty the ideals to which it owes its birth”.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin teaches us so very well in his outstanding 2 CD audio set The Gathering Storm (Genesis Journeys series) about how and why mankind tends toward avoidance of responsibility as it applies to both the raising children and the creation of wealth.
Politicians of Mayor Emanuel’s stripe pander to those who want access to both “an ounce of prevention” and “a pound of cure” (i.e. abortion “rights” and “entitlement” programs).
Further along this road to serfdom, however, the totalitarian state will alleviate itself of responsibility for raising “the people’s” children by enforced family planning – kidnapping pregnant women and forcefully injecting them with labor inducing drugs (see the absolutely horrible cover story of today’s USA Today newspaper titled Forced abortions, broken hearts).
“The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.” Ecclesiastes 1:9
Once again, Mrs. Lapin, you are right on target. Values are indeed funny things. There is a new class in America, or perhaps an ancient class now growing in power and influence. The ‘new’ class with their Progressive ideas are ‘in’ and the old guard with its antiquated values are ‘out.’
The Progressive ideas demand absolute equality for everyone. The Progressive ideas call for empowerment of any number of ‘fringe’ groups in society, to set each group against all the rest of society. Our highest officer has epithetized the common folk of a major US state, one of the thirteen colonies, as unregenerate yahoos “clinging to their guns and religion.”
Mass media endorsement and support of the Progressives and their shifting ‘values’ seems unquestioning and insidious. The Progressive can utter any lie, call anyone any name, no matter how vile, or spread any innuendo with impunity (their glorious Cause justifies whatever means to its end). But supporters of the old values must walk a path on the razor’s edge, and their every public remark is subjected to a withering dissection and analysis according to the paradigm of the new Progressive dialectic.
The greatest insidious danger is the waxing Progressive chant that the United States Constitution is a worthless, outdated old document that possesses only historical relevance, and needs radical revision or even abolishment. There are worshippers of Nimrod who fervently desire the humiliation and annihilation of the Constitution. When the Constitution is gone, then there will be no more human beings with inalienable rights granted them by God’s divine authority. The people will be interchangeable and expendable carbon-unit building blocks at the disposition of The State and subject to its every wanton whim.
Did the Progressives not read Animal Farm or 1984? Socialism and its uglier cousins have failed at every implementation. ‘Oh, but THIS time it will be different!” When that glorious day arrives, guns will represent a threat to the New World Order and religion will be ancient tribal superstition, primitive and superseded. Then only the State Police and criminals will have guns and the populace will be sitting ducks. And The State will indoctrinate us per force with the New Dialectic. Absences from the Government Sanctuary will not be tolerated, and missing Monday School will be punished by harsh remedial rehabilitation.
Thanks to you and My Rabbi for your Ancient Jewish Wisdom.
Very well said…thank you!