Archive for the ‘World Issues’ Category
Mediocre and entitled
“There is an infinite difference between a little wrong and just right, between fairly good and the best, between mediocrity and superiority.”
Orison Swett Marden (1850-1924), American writer
Rape-rape?
Whoopi Goldberg said of producer Roman Polanski and his rape conviction of the 13-year-old girl he drugged and sodomized, “It wasn’t rape-rape. It was something else but I don’t believe it was rape-rape.”
Sanctuary cities and Arizona
Among the limited powers of the federal government are matters of immigration and border security. However, the government seems unable to carry out these constitutional responsibilities, seemingly incapable of doing what the Constitution mandates.
Impenetrable borders
Is border security a priority for the government? The president proposes adding $500 million to the Border Patrol budget, which seems significant until you remember he spent over $3 billion on the “cash for clunkers” program. Further, his solution for the 12 to 20 million illegal aliens already here is to create a way for them to become U.S. citizens. But won’t that just increase future illegal entry into our country rather than eliminate it?
Another price of ignoring our borders
Mexico’s Foreign Ministry said Arizona’s treatment of illegal aliens “violates inalienable human rights.” And Mexico’s president, Felipe Calderon, recently rebuked the United States Congress, saying Arizona’s illegal alien law is a “threat to civil rights and democracy.” When did living in a country illegally become an inalienable human right, a civil right?
Forgetting the evil
“I ask nothing of the Jews
except that they should disappear.”
- Hans Frank, Nazi governor of Poland
No more apologies – Part II
We grovel before Gadhafi and hide our flag. Critics claim we are a self-centered and selfish country, providing less foreign aid than twenty-one other countries when comparing the aid as a percentage of gross national income. Are our critics right? Are we not what we believe?
No more apologies – Part I
Once again, the United States drops to its knees, this time apologizing to the terrorist leader of Libya, Moammar Gadhafi. Remember him? He was behind the 1986 bombing of a West Berlin nightclub and was responsible for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland.
The ‘ism’ elixir?
“Bad officials are elected by
good citizens who do not vote.”
George Jean Nathan
American drama critic and newspaper editor
I watched a 1948 cartoon produced by Harding College, “Make Mine Freedom,” which tells the story of Ism elixir. If you have already viewed this, my apologies. If not, let me share the tale of Ism.
Well-intentioned missionaries or criminals?
This is the question Haitian courts will answer to determine the fate of the jailed Idaho missionaries who tried to take children out of Haiti illegally. When arrested, the missionaries initially claimed they were trying to “rescue” orphaned children from the disaster caused by the earthquakes.
“Humans are more important than hardware”
On Christmas day, a Nigerian man boarded Northwest Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit with a bomb he planned to detonate over the United States, his success prevented more by luck than skill.
Guns, the Constitution and Switzerland
A fact regularly ignored in much of the gun debate – the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution. In 2008, the Supreme Court revisited the constitutional meaning of the right of the individual to “keep and bear arms,” and unequivocally affirmed our constitutional right of individual gun ownership.
Politically correct bad science
The accuracy of environmental science research is critical because decrees by the United States impact the world, along with the consequences of that science. So, shouldn’t we question environmental science? And, if that science is solid, shouldn’t questioning be welcomed, rather than feared?
The czars of the U.S.S.A.
In his inaugural address of 1801, Thomas Jefferson near-prophetically described our current government saying, “Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.”
Israel or Palestine?
President Harry Truman said, “No two historians ever agree on what happened, and the damn thing is they both think they’re telling the truth.”
The United States – the world’s provider and protector
We consider ourselves a giving, caring country. But how do we compare to other “rich” nations in our willingness to provide foreign aid? The Paris-based Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is a thirty-nation organization that works with countries to develop “open market economies, democratic pluralism, and respect for human rights.” In 2003, OECD reported how much their member countries gave in foreign aid. The United States was responsible for 35 percent of the total contributions of the thirty nations and gave more than twice that of the next biggest giver, Japan. But, when the same foreign aid data was presented as a percentage of the country’s gross national income; the United States did not fare as well, ranking in the lower third of the world’s richest countries, giving only 0.15 percent of our gross national income compared to the most generous country, Norway, that gave 0.92 percent, followed by Denmark that gave 0.84 percent.
Should America boycott Beijing?
August 8th is the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China. This Olympics will open with controversy, just as have some earlier Olympics. The controversy surrounding this Olympics is the ongoing human rights violations attributed to China. Political dissidents in China often face imprisonment, torture, or even death. There is escalating violence in Tibet along with alleged genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan, believed to be supported by the Chinese.
