Category Archives: morality

Religious Freedom

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Lebanon High School Principal Kevin Lowery gave a commencement address to his high school students. In the course of his speech, he spoke repeatedly of God and His role in our individual lives and in the life of our nation. Among other things, he reminded his students that our national motto is “In God We Trust,” and that it is imprinted on all of our currency. He gave a short history lesson, generally absent from the classes, that Francis Scott Key’s original version of our national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” made references to God.

Lowery also wryly noted during the May 23 commencement that even though “God is reflected in the very fabric” of the nation, it would be inappropriate to mention The Almighty at a secular ceremony.

“So while it would not be politically correct for us to have an official prayer this evening,” he said, “I would like for us to have a moment of silence in honor of tonight’s graduates. Thank you. And just in case you’re interested, during my moment of silence, I gave thanks to God for these great students, their parents, their teachers, and for this community.”

A YouTube clip of Lowry’s address is here. Among the comments on the clip, Dave Muscato, Public Relations Director for American Atheists, had this to say:

I find this extremely objectionable. I think it’s clear that Kevin Lowery violated the spirit of the First Amendment separations of religion and government. This was an underhanded and dishonorable way for him to forcibly inject his personal religious views onto his students and the others present and into his role as a government official.

That’s…unfortunate. I find Muscato’s comment extremely objectionable. I think it’s clear that David Muscato is trying to violate the spirit of the First Amendment’s free exercise of religion. This is an underhanded and dishonorable way for him to forcibly inject his personal religious views onto children and the others present and an abuse of his role as gadfly.

Minimum Wage and Morality

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Seattle has passed an ordinance that will raise the minimum wage private businesses in the city must pay to $15/hr. The wage increase will take effect in stages over a few years, starting next April. I’ve written elsewhere (here, for instance, and here) on the economic utility of raising the minimum wage.

What about what a government-imposed minimum wage does to a worker’s morality? A Seattle home health worker earning $10.95/hr had this to say about her situation and Seattle’s minimum wage mandate, as summarized at the first link, and also quoted there:

[She] is looking forward to the way a higher wage will help her support her three children.

She said she and her three kids are living with her brother because she can’t afford an apartment of her own even though she works full time. “This will make changes to myself and also a lot of other people in my shoes.”

She says that like family taking care of family is a bad thing. But why shouldn’t family take care of family first, rather than strangers being forced to do so ahead of family? Plainly, this family does not need the outside help; they just find it…convenient.

Politicizing the VA’s Failure

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“Politicizing the problems at the VA is disgusting and appalling, but typical for Senate candidates that have a record on veterans’ issues that they should be ashamed of,” the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee said.

You bet. Because Koch.

No, those Democrat candidates for Senator, insisting on politicizing the VA’s shameful behavior, need to be replaced. As do those incumbent Democrat Senators as they come up for election. The DSCC is right on this one: their Senators’ use of our veterans as pawns in their…arguments…is nearly as shameful as the VA’s performance.

On Bergdahl’s…Release

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Leaving aside the fact that acceding to the terrorists’ ransom demands placed at risk all Americans and especially our soldiers from every two-bit terrorist wannabe looking to make a buck—and from every serious terrorists, there are other concerns.

But wait. Terrorists already are kidnapping “young school girls, business people and other innocent people.” Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said as much in defending this ransom payment. Unfortunately, he carefully elided the fact that, with empirical evidence that the thing works with our government, that risk has gone up sharply. The United States does not negotiate with terrorists? This administration just did.

But back to my main point. The law of the land—the just passed (!) 2014 National Defense Authorization Act requires the administration to give a 30-day notification to Congress before releasing detainees—five of whom, in the present case, constituted the ransom—from Guantanamo. Here is where the dishonesty so ingrained in this administration’s senior personnel that they don’t even recognize what they’re doing becomes obvious.

Hagel justified the lack of notice by claiming there wasn’t time. He deliberately omitted to give that required notification because

We believed that the information we had, the intelligence we had, was such that Sgt Bergdahl’s safety and health were in jeopardy. In particular his health was deteriorating. It was our judgment that if we could find an opening and move very quickly, we needed to get him out of there, essentially to save his life.

He also said, though, in that same discussion with a distracted press,

This didn’t just start; this has been an ongoing effort. The timing was right, the pieces came together. Our consistent efforts that we have been making over the years paid off.

By his own words, this administration had the time to obey the law. The law, though, was inconvenient.

A Thought on the Army of a Free Country

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Wretchard, of Belmont Club, has a very good take on President Barack Obama’s few days ago commencement speech at the US Military Academy. Read the whole thing.

Read the whole thing, including the comment thread attached to it. Wretchard commenter Mr. Lucky2 points out that Ayn Rand also addressed West Point: the graduating class of ’74. Her remarks, quoted in part by Mr. Lucky2, stand in sharp contrast to Obama’s…address.

The army of a free country has a great responsibility: the right to use force, but not as an instrument of compulsion and brute conquest—as the armies of other countries have done in their histories—only as an instrument of a free nation’s self-defense, which means: the defense of a man’s individual rights. The principle of using force only in retaliation against those who initiate its use, is the principle of subordinating might to right. The highest integrity and sense of honor are required for such a task. No other army in the world has achieved it. You have.

West Point has given America a long line of heroes, known and unknown. You, this year’s graduates, have a glorious tradition to carry on—which I admire profoundly, not because it is a tradition, but because it is glorious.

Since I came from a country guilty of the worst tyranny on earth, I am particularly able to appreciate the meaning, the greatness and the supreme value of that which you are defending. So, in my own name and in the name of many people who think as I do, I want to say, to all the men of West Point, past, present and future: Thank you.