(what do they have in common?)

Relevant Quotes:

“Democracy is moral before it is political.”
Cal Thomas

“Complete moral tolerance is possible only when men have become completely indifferent to each other---that is to say when society is at an end.”
James Fitzjames Stephens

“Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the greatness and the genius of America. America is good. And if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”
Alexis de Tocqueville

“Goodness always involves the choice to be good.”
Liv Ullmann

“Some things really are that simple.”
Thomas Sowell

Since last June, when Reagan’s life was celebrated, till this week’s celebration of the Pope’s life, millions of words have been written about celebrities and celebrity issues.

There is a common if contrasting thread which is plain to see. The two men spoke for life, faith, love, charity, honesty, optimism, democracy and freedom. The immoral “axis of evil” speaks for what has become known popularly as the culture of death: the epitome of the faithless, uncharitable, pessimistic, dishonest, hopeless, anti-democratic forces which compromise and ultimately will destroy freedom.

Tocqueville’s quote used to be explicative. It has now become frightening. Our great nation is succumbing to the myth that morality is instinctual, and worse, is definable by majority vote as influenced by “push-polls,” incorrectly defined goals and junk science, not to mention junk philosophy and logic. Such is the product of unbridled neo-Darwinism, which fosters the devolution of faith and religion as the basis of all that is good. The irony is that Liberals depend as much upon faith (however misguided) as do the religious, and they have a religion called “Progressivism.”

Our founding fathers spoke of “inalienable rights” as irrevocable gifts of “our creator.” Our constitution awarded only a few necessary powers to government. The rest were left to the people, who were presumed to be the wellspring of righteousness, based upon the well grounded beliefs of the Christian religion--and espoused by all other major religions, in any event. From the beginning, religion, morality, humility, and the wisdom gleaned from and passed thru history—imprinting, if you will—were presumed necessary for the evolution and continued well being of our country and our citizenry.

No longer do we depend on immutable natural law. Instead we have an “aristocracy of the robe” which regularly rules against natural law—and common sense—supported by the Liberal intellectuals who have lost all touch with reality. They represent themselves as speaking truth to power, while they often prevaricate to gain it. When that fails, they impose their “manifest” superiority of intellect from the bench.

The culture of death values “individual rights,” and, too often “group rights” which are narrowly defined and deviously described so as to avoid the compelling moral questions. As individuals do we have the right to destroy life (fetal stem cells) for some hypothetical “curative” possibility, or have we the responsibility to protect nascent life because it is life? Should we have the right to destroy inconvenient, uncomfortable, or expensive life, or have we the responsibility to protect it because it is life?

Of course there are, and ought to be, situations when just “letting go” is the proper thing to do. But there is a difference between using stem cells from living adults in the search for cures, and destroying infants for those same cells for use in the same endeavor. There is a difference between not aggressively treating the dying to prolong their life (and maybe their agony), and simply executing them by depriving them of food and drink. These are important philosophic, moral decisions which are not being thought out logically or in depth.

Where do we go from here? Shall we support abortion on demand--including infanticide—because of a mother’s rights? How about the child? And shall we support euthanasia on demand because the about to be decedent is inconvenient or expensive? Isn’t that murder? Our robed friends on the bench, and the legal profession at large, go to imponderable ends to protect the criminals of our society from the death penalty, and when they fail assure them a painless death.

Those convicted of capital crimes seem to be the only group with a right to life. How about the invalids and the innocent?