Touchy Tuesday

In the last decade of his life Einstein approached several touchy topics. I didn’t always agree with his views, but I did appreciate how he arrived at them. Many chided Einstein for tackling sensitive subjects. He responded to his older colleagues by saying they had a responsibility to tackle the unpopular ideas both in the field of science and in politics. He reminded them that the younger colleagues were busy establishing themselves and to broach such subjects would be career suicide for them, whereas he and his colleagues were securely established it was their responsibility to take chances for the younger generation.

I’ve thought a lot about Einstein’s observation. I think he was right. At some point it becomes the responsibility of the older generation to take on the projects that are too time-consuming for the younger generation who are actively involved in establishing families, careers, lives. My Grandpa Hoops did for us what Einstein did for his younger colleagues. He made large donations to groups advocating the Constitution. He worried about the economic status of the nation (remember the inflation of the '70’s?) and kept us abreast. He organized trust funds to help educate future generations. Naturally, I became interested in government and the older I get the more responsibility I feel to be aware.

When I asked you for Tuesday Topics, “Tacky Tuesday” (a personal view on politics) was suggested. I determined that Touchy Tuesday would probably be a more appropriate title. For while governance and politics concerns and affects us all in a very real way, it has become a polarizing and often ugly conversation piece.

I have turned off comments on this post. While I appreciate your views and would love to read them on your blog, for today my political and religious beliefs are not up for debate.

I watched Vice President Spiro Agnew resign on TV. It was on the news and I remember stopping whatever it was I was doing to watch it. I sensed it was an event. Later, I watched President Richard Nixon resign. I remember the Viet Nam war and singing “The Green Berets” in music time at school. I also remember the night Jimmy Carter was elected president. It was 1976—the bicentennial year—and I was in New York City when the election results were announced. Though I was only fourteen-years-old, I remember the anxiety I felt when Mr. Carter was elected. He was our first pro-abortion president and I wondered how it would impact the future of our country. I remember wondering how mad God would be at a country that kills babies. I believe all people have unalienable rights—rights given by our Creator—and those rights are as defined in the Declaration of Independence: the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I believe abortion strips a human fetus of those rights that God gave it.

The only abortions that our government has funded are those covered under Medicaid in event of rape, incest, and life endangerment—situations where I believe abortion could be an acceptable alternative. Currently with legislation that is being debated, the government would fund other abortions to interested citizens. I do not agree with this in any way, shape, or form and fear the judgments of God should this bill be enacted into law more than I did that night in New York City. Federally funded abortions is but one of my objections to the health-care bill.

I believe we should be self-reliant as individuals and as a country. The burgeoning national debt is not only debilitating it is enslaving. I think the disbursement of tax revenues has become fraudulent and corrupt.

I believe our Constitution is inspired of God. My heart swelled the days our boys took the oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. I believe the Constitution was designed to protect us. I believe we must protect the Constitution to stay free. I also believe it is as John Adams said, “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” I believe that we are a good nation with good people, but that if we allow immorality to govern we will fall.

I believe that there should be no state-run Church and that all should have the freedom to worship “according to the dictates of our own conscience.” I believe that the quest to strip God from our public lives and governance is endorsing a state-run church of godlessness.

I believe that freedom requires sacrifice.

*I believe that government should have limited powers. I believe its purpose is to protect us against bodily harm (life), involuntary servitude, (liberty), and theft (happiness). “No individual possesses the power to take another's wealth or to force others to do good, so no government has the right to do such things either. The creature cannot exceed the creator.” (Ezra Taft Benson)

I believe that if we want a strong nation, we have to have strong families. It we want to have strong families, we have to have strong marriages. I believe that marriage between a man and woman is the only marriage sanctioned by God.

I am concerned and watch our relationship with Israel closely and also the conflicts between her and her neighboring nations. I believe in the scriptures' prophecies of events both in America and in Israel.

I believe we are a great nation with unlimited potential for good. I appreciate this quote by J. Reuben Clark, Jr. “I have a complete confidence in the aggregate wisdom of the . . . people if they are given and made to understand the facts. The wisdom of the mass is always greater than the wisdom of the individual or of the group. The few may be more subtle, more agile-minded, more resourceful; they may for a time push to the front and scamper ahead in the march; they may on occasion and for a time entice us down the wrong highway at the crossroads. But the great slow-moving, deliberate-thinking mass plods along over the years down the Divinely appointed way. Led astray, they slowly, cumberously swing back to the right road, no matter what the toil or the sacrifice may be, and when they start the return, they crush whatever lies in their path. So has humanity come up through the ages.”

*http://speeches.byu.edu/reader/reader.php?id=6985