Leftist Legerdemain

The Obama/Catholic “contraception” brouhaha has many dimensions not visible at first glance. It’s more than Obama forcing the Catholic Church to pay for birth control, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs. It’s the nihilistic, 21st century left forcing the oldest institution on earth - the Catholic Church - to approve what they’ve fought against for two millennia. It’s a political subterfuge as well.

The Church believes the primary purpose of sex is procreation. The left believes sex is for recreation - not in the sense of “creating something new,” but in the sense of “a diversion affording relaxation and enjoyment.” The left divorced sex and procreation.

Should pregnancy result, the left sees it as a disease to be “cured” by abortion.
The Catholic Church believes sexuality should be exclusive to marriage and that married couples do nothing artificial to prevent conception. The Church approves only Natural Family Planning, which requires acute familiarity with a woman’s menstrual cycle to pinpoint periods of fertility. It counsels abstinence when she’s fertile if pregnancy is to be avoided, or coitus when pregnancy is desired.The left ridicules Natural Family Planning as “rhythm.” It pushes artificial contraception before and/or during every episode of sexual intercourse, and abortion after. It sees pregnancy is a negative side-effect of sex. The left calls abstinence repressive. It pushes sexual experimentation with a variety of techniques and a variety of partners - the more, the better. All this, they insist, is liberating.

The Church teaches that the left’s sexual agenda is dehumanizing.

The left - and the Obama Administration is its epitome - uses government to legitimize, propagate and finance its agenda. Obama’s latest gambit is a calculated move to disparage the Catholic view of sex and life. Consider that health insurance doesn’t cover plastic surgery because it’s an elective procedure. But so is contraception. So is abortion. Why should they be covered?

“Oh, but insurance covers Viagra for men,” say leftists, “so it should cover birth control pills for women too.” They’re correct to point out that Viagra doesn’t contribute to mens’ health. It’s elective, and men should buy it themselves. Ditto for women and birth control. Viagra costs about $5 per pill. Generic birth control pills cost about $20 per month. Both are cheap and both are optional. Neither belongs in the realm of health insurance.

That conservatives would object to paying for everyone’s contraception is incomprehensible to the liberal/left as exemplified by MSNBC’S Andrea Mitchell in her recent interview with Foster Friess, a Rick Santorum backer:

"This contraceptive thing,” said Friess. My gosh, it's so inexpensive. Back in my day, they used Bayer Aspirin for contraception. The gals put it between their knees and it wasn't that costly.”

Mitchell was speechless. "Excuse me,” she said. “I'm just trying to catch my breath from that.”

The left insists that contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs be required by government because the mandate confers approval, just as homosexual “marriage” confers societal approval of homosexual acts which the Catholic Church teaches are sinful. That’s what this is all about. The left wants government to be arbiter of right and wrong. It wants government to supplant religion when adjudicating morality. They insist that to oppose mandatory contraception coverage is to be “against women’s health.”

Pregnancy as disease.

Columnist Ann Coulter takes it further:


Just as liberals have turned the Constitution into a vehicle for achieving all the left-wing policies they could never get Americans to vote for, now they are going to use "insurance" for the same purpose. Their new method doesn't even require them to get votes from five justices on the Supreme Court. The secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, will do it all on her own.

Anything close to the beating heart of feminism is about to become a mandatory part of insurance coverage: fertility treatments, chemical sensitivities, a year's leave of absence for fathers after the birth of a child, attention deficit disorder, massages, aromatherapy, watching MSNBC, sex change operations, gender reassignment surgery, gender re-reassignment surgery.

What Coulter didn’t say above is that public funding of abortion is next. Few doubt that, should Obama be reelected, mandatory public funding of abortion on demand will be added by fiat from Kathleen Sebelius.

In a column titled “The Libertine Police State,” George Weigel put it this way:

By effectively sundering sexual expression from procreation, modern contraceptives have done something their less-effective predecessors were unable to do for millennia: They have created a contraceptive culture that identifies fertility with disease and willful infertility with “health.” Those who celebrate that culture are not interested in compromise: They are interested in having everyone pay for what they want, and in levying serious penalties on those who won’t truckle to their will.

The Obama campaign realizes that pushing abortion is a losing issue. They have the pro-abortion vote locked up already, so now they’re changing the debate to contraception, which most Americans approve. The campaign has millions of Americans wondering if Republicans would outlaw contraception instead of thinking about how Democrats are bankrupting our country.

Hope, Change, And Reality

What happens when the lead dog, the lead bull, or the lead stallion weakens? Fighting - until a new one emerges. That could happen quickly or it could take a while. If the United States is perceived by the rest of the world to be in decline, we can expect fighting to increase worldwide.

Perception is reality in politics, especially in a democracy because people vote based on their perceptions of candidates or issues. Americans perceived Barack Obama as a brilliant, articulate leader who would bring Americans together to solve common problems here and in the rest of the world. That resulted in his election. Perception is indeed reality in politics, and its also true that war is an extension of politics by other means. When the rest of the world perceives President Obama as weak, America is going to be challenged. It’s already starting. Expect it to escalate this year.

Most historians point to periods of relative peace over the past two millennia starting with “Pax Romana,” or the “Peace of Rome,” which lasted about two centuries from the time of Augustus in 27 BC to the death of Marcus Aurelius in 180 AD. Why? Because most of the world knew Roman legions were so strong that to challenge them was futile. There were uprisings, sure. Jewish Zealots rebelled in Israel, but they were put down so thoroughly and decisively their uprising became the exception that proved the rule. Others watched and heeded as Rome killed more than a million Jews and scattered the rest across the empire in the Great Diaspora. Then came “Pax Brittanica,” which lasted about half as long - 1815-1914. The world knew it was futile to challenge British rule as enforced by its navy. Then came the “Pax Americana” which began in 1945. How long will it last? As long as the world perceives it’s futile to challenge the United States. My guess, sadly, is that it won’t last much longer.The 52% of Americans who voted for Obama in 2008 believed he would charm the world as he had charmed them, as he (at first) charmed Europeans. So, when Iran continued to develop nuclear weapons, President Obama said in January, 2009 that he would talk to them without preconditions. It looks like he really believed he could simply charm the mullahs into giving up their ambitions. This is a country that declared war on the United States back in 1979, that calls America “The Great Satan,” that brings together millions of its people year after year to chant “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” in the streets of Tehran. Again and again, the Iranian president promises to “wipe Israel off the map.” They’ve amassed proxy armies in Gaza and Lebanon that shoot rockets at Israel regularly. What was Obama thinking? What hubris.The mullahs now threaten to close the Strait of Hormuz through which 20% of the world’s oil passes. Just the threat caused prices to jump 2%. An actual attempt could be catastrophic to an already-precarious world economy. Using fast “suicide bomb boats” with warheads would invite swift and deadly response from the US Fifth Fleet. Imagine what shooting and/or bombing in the Persian Gulf would do to oil futures? We’re already looking at $5-a-gallon gas in just a few months, and that’s only if things stay calm.Then there’s the inevitable Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Obama Defense Secretary Leon Panetta expects it within the next four months. Remember - modern Israel was founded to prevent a repeat of the Holocaust. Iran denies there ever was one but promises another.Israel knows talk is cheap. They know appeasement didn’t work with Hitler when Chamberlain tried it and it won’t work with Iran’s mullahs either. Israel cannot and will not stake its survival on lyrical speeches by Obama. One thing it shares with Iran is the perception that Obama is a weak commander-in-chief - all talk and no action - and that makes war a virtual certainty. Just imagine what all this will do to the world’s economy when oil prices skyrocket and even the availability of oil becomes spotty. Rationing anyone? With all this looming, what did Obama do? Caving to the environmental whackos in his party, he shut down construction of the Keystone pipeline. What is he thinking?Barack Obama portrayed himself as the harbinger of “Hope and Change” when he said: “Change will not come if we wait for some other person . . . We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.” The 66 million Americans who voted for him had probably that many perceptions of what the changes he effected would look like. I suspect that by the end of this summer, reality will not resemble any of those perceptions. Neither will it be what any had hoped for when they cast their ballots in 2008.However, another “Change” will be manifesting in voter perception come November - when Obama becomes “The one we’ve been waiting to get rid of.”

A Human Being

“How do you like retirement?” is a question I hear often. I don’t teach anymore, but I’m still working two part-time jobs. Writing this is one of them. The other demands less of me in winter, and I usually answer that I like retirement very well. Mostly, I like that I don’t feel rushed. I'm more of a human being than a human doing. I keep the same hours - up at 4:30 and early to bed - but the pace is slower and that’s the best part. I often have time to chat when I bump into friends, something I could rarely do before.
A good friend advised that I not jump into something else right away, to take a year and just be. See what happened. That felt right, so I said no to several offers right away. Didn’t think I’d take the whole year, but I’m two-thirds into it already and I’m noticing subtle, but important changes.

First I moved my laptop and power cord upstairs to my office where the printer, fax, filing cabinets and phones are. When I want to open it, I go up there. The laptop used to be next to my recliner in the living room. For years, that was where I’d do my writing, bill-paying, and news-gathering. I could pick it up during commercials for quick check of email or news, but it began to bother me when my wife and grandson would say, “You’re always on the computer.” That wasn’t literally true but it’s how they perceived me, so I began to observe myself. I noticed that when I picked up my computer and opened it on my lap, I was taken away. My body was in the room, but other parts were somewhere else.
Then I began to alter how I began my day. After showering, putting coffee on, exercising, praying, and getting dressed, I’d go into my office and open the laptop. During winter, I exercise and pray in the dark. I’d see stars through my windows. If the moon was up, I could see the horizon - the white peak of Mount Washington with stars twinkling above it. Few if any other people in my area of the world would be awake, and if they were, they kept to themselves too. I liked watching alone as the world outside filled up with light. But when I went to my office after that and opened the computer, it shined artificial light into my face. My dilated pupils would contract and all I’d see was my screen. Perception changed from physical/spiritual awareness to intellectual. Contemplative mood diminished as I was taken away again to other places and times.My mind would be pulled in several directions in short intervals. There were emails to trash, to read, and to answer - some business-related, some social, some informative. Others contained links to stories and commentaries. It was all stimulating and parts of me loved it. Other parts, however, felt robbed. The part that pondered the quiet, cold sky, the vague outlines of the hardwoods outside my window, stars twinkling between the fingers of their upper branches - the part still contemplating my Creator, that listened for response to prayer, the part that felt residual warmth and strength after exercise, and the sensation of caffeine from my first cup of coffee. Those parts felt deprived, just as my wife and grandson did when my laptop was so often open as I sat in their presence. So, I’m moving away from those things - not entirely, but substantially. I’m starting my day reading hard copy. Lately that’s a novel called “The Father’s Tale” by Michael O’Brien.It’s the novel I’d fall asleep to before going into dream state. Of some dreams I’d remember large parts, but of others only a few scattered images and feelings. With some dreams come understandings of symbols and archetypes, but with others only incoherent jumbles which may never be sorted out. A novel is not unlike that. Images and feelings are generated in our mind’s eye by the novelist’s word sequences as we allow disbelief to suspend. Reading it the next morning offers me a more gentle segue into the new day. O’Brien’s spirituality - his sense of meanings and mysteries - are woven into his characters, and the main character is a father. He wanders through life as all of us do, trying to glean meaning from the people, events and circumstances he experiences each day.All this has been helping me assume a more balanced state for my attempts to comprehend the wider world I’ll glimpse when I finally do open the computer. I turn down the intensity of the light from the screen so I can still glance outside from to time and watch as the Maker of all illuminates the world.

Backlash Against Thought Police

The left-wing Thought Police have gained strength in recent years and they’ve been flexing their muscles wherever they can. Christian ministers in Canada and in the UK who speak publicly against homosexuality on Biblical grounds are charged with hate speech. Students, teachers, and many others have muzzled themselves in fear of retribution by politically-correct superiors, but there are signs their reign of terror may have peaked.

The Roman Catholic Church has been in their sights because of its teachings that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered” and that abortion is murder. Direct confrontations with the Catholic Church have been mostly avoided until recently.

In Ontario, provincial authorities are requiring that Catholic schools establish “Gay-Straight Alliances” or “GSAs,” ostensibly to prevent bullying. In Canada and in the US, this has been a Trojan Horse for pushing the homosexual agenda in schools from kindergarten through high school. Catholic authorities in Ontario refused, arguing that promoting homosexual acts violates church teaching. They’ll establish clubs to prevent bullying, but will refuse to teach anything implying that homosexual acts are acceptable. The ball is in the Ontario Ministry of Education’s court now. Catholics there are wising up, finally, and drawing a line in the sand. Expect a battle.

In the Diocese of Maine, Bishop Malone instructed all its priests to read a letter from the pulpit challenging President Obama’s mandate that the Catholics in the US provide contraception services as part of health insurance coverage to employees of Catholic hospitals, schools, and other social service agencies. This coverage must be provided without co-pay and must include tubal ligations, vasectomies, and so-called “morning after pills.” The Catholic Church teaches that the primary purpose of sex is procreation and that artificial birth control is wrong. It also teaches that human life begins at conception and so-called “morning-after pills” work by destroying embryonic human life. Here too, Catholics are wising up and drawing a line in the sand. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is claiming a violation of its rights under the First Amendment’s “free exercise [of religion]” clause. Expect a battle here too.President Obama is gambling. He’s trying to get his secular/socialist camel’s nose into the Catholic tent. He knows a majority of Catholics disagree with the church’s teaching on contraception and many don’t agree on abortion either. Quite a few liberal Democrat members of the US House and Senate are nominal Catholics who have been openly pro-abortion for decades, yet still receive the sacraments publicly in their parishes. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) ruled in 2006 that individual bishops could refuse them the Eucharist but most declined to exercise that authority. Some did however, including bishops in dioceses serving former Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius as well as now-former congressmen David Obey (D-MO) and Patrick Kennedy (D-RI). Ironically, Sebelius is serving in Obama’s cabinet as Health and Human Services Secretary and was named by my priest last Sunday morning as the author of the Obamacare ruling against which Maine’s Bishop Malone strenuously objected.

Conservative Catholics are encouraged by the USCCB’s public challenge to President Obama. We’ve been waiting a long time. Early in the Obama presidency, the White House asked Georgetown University to cover up the symbol “IHS,” which stands for “Jesus,” that would have been visible behind Obama as he spoke. Unbelievably, Georgetown - a Jesuit university - complied. Talk about cowardice. No wonder Obama believes he can bully Catholics.

On another front: The fields of psychology and social work have been virtually taken over by the left-wing, homosexual Thought Police. Recently however, graduate schools of social work around the country are being sued after requiring students to accept homosexuality as normal regardless of their religious objections. One woman in Augusta, Georgia was told to attend “gay pride” parades or be denied a degree. She was ultimately expelled from the program and a federal appeals court sided with the university on December 11, 2011. An identical lawsuit by a Michigan woman expelled from her counseling program because of her religious views on homosexuality was upheld by a different federal appeals court just the other day. Given these opposite rulings in two different federal appeals courts, it would appear that the US Supreme Court will have to resolve this ultimately.

Obama’s open challenge to the Catholic hierarchy as represented by the USCCB on this Obamacare ruling may be a major misstep. Six of the nine justices on the US Supreme Court are Catholics, and at least four of those take their religion seriously. They’ll be ruling on the constitutionality of Obamacare in just a few months.

As the culture war escalates on all these fronts, fence-sitting Catholics as well as other Christians in the US and Canada will be forced to get off on one side or the other. It’s past time they did, but better late than never.

Fiery or Milquetoast?

There’s no fire in Romney’s belly, but Gingrich has it. It’s in his eyes too. People see it. They like it, and they don’t sense it in the other candidates either. That’s the biggest reason Gingrich won South Carolina. Conservatives wanted someone who will take it to Obama and his media lapdogs and they know Gingrich will.

Conservatives believe media went after Gingrich because he’s conservative. They loved watching him give it back. They believe Obama gets a pass - and he’s our president only because media have worshiped him since he spoke at the 2004 Democratic convention. They believe media look for dirt on conservative candidates but turn a blind eye when it comes to liberal Democrats. When they’re forced to report it because new media like blogs and AM radio have been on a story for days or weeks, they’ll grudgingly put it on page 16. Gingrich gave voice to conservative anger and the base affirmed him with an overwhelming victory.

CNN's John King being lambasted by Gingrich in South Carolina

As I moved across the political spectrum from left to right over the past 25 years, I’ve become much more aware of how pronounced liberal media bias is. It seemed like brilliant insight when I was a liberal, but when I matured into middle age and life experience opened my mind to alternative viewpoints and I realized that, as Margaret Thatcher said, “The facts of life are conservative,” liberal bias became more and more obvious. Gingrich gets it and so do Republican primary voters.

Audience in South Carolina responding to Gingrich

But will a majority of the American electorate get it in November? That’s the question that haunts. Should conservative voters ignore their gut and vote for the candidate that they think most Americans will support? Or do they look for a leader who will be able to shape voter opinion between now and then? The late Bill Buckley, founder of modern conservatism, established the rule that Republicans should vote for the most conservative candidate with the best chance of being elected. So who should it be? The fiery one or the milquetoast one?

I’ve been present for Romney speeches at least five times. Once I questioned him personally. He’s an intelligent, articulate and good-looking candidate. But he’s like a “Ken” doll. It’s as if there were a string in the back of his neck that someone pulls and he goes out and talks until it coils back in. He’s bland. He’s boring. I was in the Washington, DC audience when Romney pulled out of the 2008 race in favor of McCain. He’d been introduced by Laura Ingraham at CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) and she was far more interesting than Romney was. She had fire but he didn’t.

I’ve been present for about five of Gingrich’s speeches too. I’ve questioned him publicly and had a couple of short conversations with him. He’s intelligent, articulate and rather ordinary-looking, a little pudgy too. He’s also spontaneous and quick, sarcastic and insightful. He shoots from the hip and from the lip, and he’s never boring.

Romney at CPAC 2010

My encounters were all at large conservative conferences. Other speakers would be introduced and then enter stage-left to polite applause. Not Gingrich. He’d be introduced in the usual way, but then the sound system would start blaring “Eye of the Tiger” while he entered from the back of the hall with an entourage as if he were the heavyweight champion of the world. He’d be smiling and shaking hands with people in the aisles as he approached the podium - the way presidents do when entering the House chamber to deliver State of the Union speeches. By the time Gingrich got up to the dais, the crowd was his. Even after such a build-up, he never disappointed when he spoke. This guy can rally the troops. South Carolina wasn’t a fluke.

"Rocky" Gingrich approaching the dais at CPAC 2009

But can he do that with independents? I think he can. He’s a history teacher. He can educate people about what Obama, Congressional Democrats, and their media lackeys have done to this country and that’s exactly what he must do with independents. He’ll have to go after Obama with gloves off, and go after the media too because they’re just as much the enemy as Obama is. We know they’re both going to go after him. The media already have. Obama will do his dirty work vicariously and he’ll have a billion dollars. That buys a lot of hatchetmen.

Gingrich as professor

All that’s going to happen no matter who the Republicans put up because Obama cannot run on his record. We’re in the mess we’re in because of him. It’s obvious after three years that he doesn’t know how to be president, but he was good at running for it. Blaming Bush for everything won’t work so well this time, so he’s blaming “the rich” now and conservative Republicans in the House. He’s going to escalate attacks like that with his billion-dollar war chest and it’s going to be an ugly race. Republican voters must consider who is most capable of winning that kind of fight.

Borrowing, Abortion, Obama

Americans aren’t happy with the government they elected. Why? If a man’s had multiple marriages and hates his ex-wives, what do his choices say about him? Unless he’s willing to take a long and deep look at himself, he’s likely to hook up with another woman he'll come to dislike. In the same way, Americans are likely to choose a government they disdain again and again.

Our government reflects us. Government doesn’t face reality because a majority of voting Americans doesn’t want to look at it. Fifty-two percent voted for Barack Hussein Obama in 2008. An honest look at him tells us much about ourselves.

Two facts about President Obama: He’s the most pro-abortion president we’ve ever had by far, and he’s borrowed far more money than any previous president. Last week he asked Congress to borrow another $1.2 trillion. At this pace, he’s set to borrow $6.2 trillion in one term - more than all our presidents from George Washington to Bill Clinton - and twice as much as George W. Bush. While campaigning in 2008, Obama called Bush “irresponsible” and “unpatriotic” for raising our nation’s debt. Now he's borrowing at twice the rate Bush did and blaming him for it.

We cannot go on like this. We’re headed off a cliff and we’re going to smash on the rocks below, but we just keep on going. Why? Our leaders lack the courage to tell Americans what they know already but don’t want to look at. We don’t want to wean ourselves from our dependence on government. We pretend we can continue to put off dealing with mounting debt but we cannot. The point we’ve come to is equivalent to that of a family whose credit cards are maxed out, whose bank is about to foreclose, whose electricity is about to be shut off, and whose oil tank is almost empty. If we’re put out on the street, we can’t look to government to feed us, clothe us and give us shelter because we are the government. We’ll be bankrupt and at the world’s mercy. We couldn’t look to Europe because they’re in the same mess we are, so who does that leave? China, Russia, and the Muslim world, that's who. How much mercy are we going to get from them?

Thirty-nine years ago next Sunday, the US Supreme Court ruled in Roe Vs Wade that women have a constitutional right to abortion. The father of our Constitution, James Madison, rolled over in his grave. Those who champion Jane Roe’s case in Texas claim to oppose abortion personally, insist that an unborn baby isn’t a human being, and seek moral cover behind “pro-choice” rhetorical legerdemain. That cover thinned considerably when the Texas Legislature passed a law encouraging women to see a sonogram before going through with their abortions. Feminists don’t want a woman to see what would be sucked out of her and thrown away. They insist it’s “unconstitutional” to show her what abortion really is and they got a federal district judge to agree with them.

Feminists insist it's a lump of tissue, but a sonogram pierces the lie for tens of millions of American women who’ve had over 40 million abortions since Roe Vs Wade. Feminists stifled the Texas law, but not for long. Last week, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the district judge’s ruling and further ruled that the sonogram requirement could be implemented immediately. This is highly threatening to Democrats - the Party of Abortion - the principal guardian of the lie that abortion is the moral equivalent of removing a tumor or a wart.

The Party's leader, Barack Hussein Obama, argued against the “Infant Born Alive Act” when he was in the Illinois legislature - the only legislator in the state with the temerity to do so. Obama argued that if an infant was born alive after a failed abortion, the state of Illinois should not force doctors to treat it, that it should be left alone to die. Obama’s habit was to vote “present” on controversial issues, but he spoke up on this one.

Abortion isn’t mentioned in our Constitution, but our Declaration of Independence states that: “We are endowed by our Creator with . . . the right to life.” Despite American Psychological Association claims, abortion traumatizes not only babies but women and many fathers as well. How much collective trauma exists in a country populated with tens of millions who live the continuing denial that abortion doesn’t kill a human life? That’s the critical mass of voters who gave us Barack Hussein Obama. This is a guy who, when asked in a debate about when human life begins, said: “That’s beyond my pay grade.” This is a guy who said about his daughters: “When they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.” This is a guy who again and again omits the essential words “by our Creator” above when quoting the Declaration of Independence in silky-voiced speeches.

There's a critical mass of Americans that won’t take responsibility for the human life it conceives and it loves Barack Obama. It’s made up of men whose view of sex is “Slam, bam, thank you m’am. Oh, you're pregnant? Here’s $500 for an abortion.” It’s made up of women who would sacrifice their own children in the name of “liberation.” These are the Americans who would continue borrowing indiscriminately from the future to keep their unsustainable benefits flowing as long as possible. Obama helps them all feel good about themselves. They voted him into the White House and they will again unless an opponent emerges who can persuade them to take a long, honest look at themselves.

To Die For

On the first day of school students would wander into my homeroom and sit, some in front and some in back. They didn’t know me and I didn’t know them. Some greeted me. Others didn’t. I’d look at each one and if I got eye contact I’d say, “Good morning,” and he or she would respond in kind. By eight o’clock all the busses would had arrived. Announcements would come over the intercom. When the Pledge of Allegiance was over they all sat down I’d walk to the front of the class, fold my arms over my chest and look them over. Every one would be staring back at me wide-eyed and expectant. I’d scratch my chin, knit my brow, then slowly shake my head saying, “Why? Why do they always give me the ugly ones?”

In shock, their eyes would grow wider. Girls would turn to each other with hands over their open mouths. After a few seconds a boy would laugh - and it was always a boy. Then other boys would laugh. After a few more seconds, they all knew I wasn’t serious. I’d keep my poker face on for another second or two before smiling.

One year, a girl asked, “Why did you do that?”

“When I stand in front of you at the beginning of each class,” I said, “I want you to be quiet and pay attention. You’re more likely to do that now. I also want you to get into the habit of thinking critically about everything you hear. I want you to ask yourself: ‘Is this opinion? Is this fact? What evidence exists? Is there enough evidence to constitute proof?’ Stuff like that.”

After a week went by I’d begin each of my four or five history classes saying: “I have good news and bad news. What do you want first?” Inevitably, they’d want the bad first, so I’d say, “You’re all going to die.”

Some would look surprised. Some had no discernible reaction and others would just smile. Then a student would say, “We know that.”

“Okay, good,” I’d say. “I don’t mean today or tomorrow, but some day.”

“We know.”
“Right. Good. So then it’s only a matter of when and how.”

“What’s the point?”

“Some of us will live a long time and some of us won’t.”

“We know that.”

“It’s one of the very few things we can be certain of,” I’d explain. “It’s good to keep in mind that we’re here for a limited time, not forever, and what we do every day matters.”
“You’re going to die too, Mr. McLaughlin.”

“Yes, and probably before you do,” I’d respond. “So I probably think about it more and give it closer attention than you do. That’s the nature of things. On average, someone my age can expect about twenty more years, more or less, and each day gets more precious with that awareness. Not a bad thing.”
“The good news is that - if the past is any guide - most of you will live longer than your parents, your grandparents, and your great-grandparents,” I’d tell them. Then I’d go on to explain average life expectancies for Americans today, compare them with what they were at other times in history, and with those of people in other places. That would work into how long a generation was and so forth. Teaching 20th century US History, I could say, “This would have been going on when your grandparents were children,” or “around when your great-grandparents were born,” etc. That helped put what might otherwise just be obscure events into perspective.

That’s the way I began my last several years in the classroom. When Veterans’ Day came in November, I’d point out that veterans were willing to give their lives for things they believed more important than themselves - usually the things students said every morning in the Pledge of Allegiance. When Martin Luther King Day came in January, I’d quote King, saying: “If a man has nothing he would die for, he isn’t fit to live.” I’d then ask if there were anything they would die for. Some indicated they would be willing to risk their lives for their families. Upon further questioning, I’d be dismayed to learn that others could think of nothing worth dying for. When Memorial Day weekend loomed, I’d inform them of the meaning of this holiday - honoring those who not only risked their lives, but gave them.

The theme of our limited lifespans presented many opportunities for lessons throughout the school year, including Ben Franklin’s quote about death and taxes, our radical Muslim enemies willing to die in their efforts to kill us, as well as different ideas about the meaning of human life, including the nihilist view - widespread in the late 20th century - that it had no meaning at all. It was a rich mine, and I drew from it often.

Paul Appeal

There’s a curious blindness evident when political pundits talk about Ron Paul. Though he’s been a major candidate for the Republican presidential nomination since the early days of the race, he’s been virtually ignored. When they do mention him, they preface their remarks by saying something like: “Although he’ll never be the nominee . . .”

Here’s a guy who has polled high since the beginning of the nominating process. Romney has been on top in most opinion polls since the beginning. Other candidates took turns as the “anti-Romney” candidate: Bachmann, Perry, Cain, Gingrich, now Santorum. Romney has consistently polled in the low to mid twenties and is seen as the likely nominee by most. Paul has been just as consistent as a major candidate, but pundits treat him like he’s not there. Bachmann won the Ames, Iowa straw poll last August with 28.55%, but Paul was so close with 27.65% that less than 1% of the vote separated them. Who got all the publicity however? Bachmann. Paul was virtually ignored.

So why does he get so much consistent support from Republican voters this year? Three reasons:

First, he proposed $1 trillion in specific cuts to government back in October. No other candidate did that. Gone would be the Departments of Education, Energy, Commerce, Interior, as well as Housing and Urban Development in a Ron Paul Administration. That appeals strongly to people who know America will cease to be America if we don’t drastically cut the federal government. The out-of-control deficit is killing us all. Voters know it, but the other candidates lack the political courage to say it explicitly the way Ron Paul does.

Second, he believes people should solve problems for themselves rather than look to government. During his appearance on Fox News Sunday this week, for example, Chris Wallace quoted from Ron Paul’s 1987 book “Freedom Under Siege” in which he wrote: “The individual suffering from AIDS certainly is a victim – frequently a victim of his own lifestyle – but this same individual victimizes innocent citizens by forcing them to pay for his care.” Wallace then asked if he still felt that way.

Paul answered: “I don’t know how you can change science. Sexually transmitted diseases are caused by sexual activity. That’s been known for some 400 or 500 years, how these diseases are spread. If a fault comes with people because of their personal behavior, and in a free society people do dumb things, but it isn’t to be placed as a burden on other people, innocent people. Why should they have to pay for the consequences? That’s a sort of a nationalistic or socialistic attitude.”

Wallace then baited Paul saying: “Do you think someone with AIDS should not be entitled to health insurance as opposed to someone who has a heterosexually transmitted disease?” Paul responded patiently - explaining how the insurance market would handle it and offered the example that one doesn’t seek insurance after getting pregnant, but before.

Third, he has consistently spoken against fighting prolonged wars in the Middle East. Paul supported the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 but not the protracted conflict there. He opposed the Iraq War and the US effort in Libya. Many conservatives would agree that fighting a conventional war against unconventional enemies is foolish, but Paul wouldn’t act against Radical Islam at all unless Congress declared war. Therein is the Achilles’s Heel of Ron Paul’s foreign policy. There’s no nation-state against which to declare war, so how would he propose that we deal with Radical Islam - which is not a nation-state, but a movement across the Muslim world on five continents?

Last August, a man asked him that at a campaign stop in Winterset, Iowa. According to the Des Moines Register, Paul said: "I don’t see Islam as our enemy. I see that motivation is occupation and those who hate us and would like to kill us, they are motivated by our invasion of their land [and] the support of their dictators that they hate."

In the same exchange, Paul reiterated his belief that the September 11th attacks were motivated by American actions. While conservatives agree with Paul about strict adherence to Congress’s exclusive constitutional authority to declare war, they’re appalled (no pun intended) that Paul would blame America for September 11th. It’s a deal-breaker for conservatives including this writer, but it’s a plus with Paul’s legions of young supporters raised to believe America is imperialist. That Ron Paul’s Libertarian beliefs would include repealing marijuana laws is also a plus with them - and they comprise the bulk of his powerful, enthusiastic, boots-on-the-ground, campaign organization.

Results of the Iowa caucus just came in as I’m filing this. Paul came in a close third behind Romney and Santorum. Sarah Palin advises the GOP to be careful not to marginalize Paul and his supporters. Good advice. The GOP establishment has been foolish to ignore the appeal Ron Paul’s consistent, strict-constructionist view that federal government be cut back drastically. Ron Paul is not a fringe candidate. His consistently-large voter support makes him viable no matter what the pundits claim.