Healthcare - Compelled to Move Forward

April 22, 2024May 11, 2024

A TRAGIC SYMBOSIS

Most of us learned in public school how a symbiosis is a “close biological relationship between different species”. Most of the time these relationships are co-dependences that benefit both species. Sometimes they’re fatal. Tragically, as a growing number of Christians have tried to assert their influence in political arenas, the accelerating ties between those who call themselves Christians and most Republican “leaders” dependent on their votes, has devolved to the detriment and mutation of both.

November 6, 2022November 6, 2022

WHAT HAVE WE BECOME?

While advocating for America and protesting against candidates in my own Republican Party over the last five years, it’s been interesting to witness how much people have changed. Typically, hundreds of people respond with a big thank you and thumbs-up, while a few dozen hurl demeaning names at me and curse me. I’ve become accustomed to that, but several interactions lately, exemplifying a level of anger and ill-informed opinion I’d rarely seen before, lead me to wonder if it might be fruitful for all of us to take a step back and question the choices we’re making and what we’ve become.

September 30, 2022September 30, 2022

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A REPUBLICAN?

As a conservative and Republican for over 40 years, given the unraveling of the Republican Party over the last six years, and the upcoming elections, perhaps it would be of some value to recall the core values the Republican Party was built on and how most current Republican politicians measure up to those values.

June 13, 2022July 22, 2022

FREEDOM AND THE GREATER GOOD

Beyond a plague upon life, if Covid has been anything it’s been a most serious teacher. It’s taught us that life is fragile and can be fleeting. It’s taught us to cherish time with family and friends. It’s taught us to pay closer attention to protecting our health. It’s taught us that effectively governing a diverse and polarized population is a really difficult thing. It’s taught us how important social time is to our children, as well as all of us. It’s taught us how a tiny virus can bring a huge and powerful country to its knees. And it’s taught us that beneath our beliefs about freedom lies a growing, dark underbelly, where individual freedoms can be elevated far above the common good.

February 21, 2022March 5, 2022

Inflation and Who’s to Blame?

As a conservative, particularly fiscally, and a student of economics for more decades than I’d like to count, witnessing the economic mistakes made by our federal government over the last 20 years, and the hardships they have wrought upon us, has been downright painful. Given the surge in inflation the last few months and our tendency to want to blame somebody, perhaps it would be helpful to take a step back and consider what caused the recent spike before locking onto who’s to blame.

October 24, 2021December 11, 2021

DUPLICITY AND ITS DESTRUCTIVE CONSEQUENCES

While visiting Yale with my son 15 years ago, our tour guide said something that has challenged me since. Near the end of the tour, I inquired about on-campus church services. Our tour guide half-jokingly replied, “Oh yea, if you’re one of those hate-mongering Christians, we have several church services here on campus”. While our tour guide tried to take back his words, churning inside my brain was the question: “How could such an extraordinarily intelligent, perceptive and otherwise gracious young man, call Christians “hate-mongering”? “Hate-mongering!” It didn’t take more than a moment to recall news a few days earlier of Christians protesting outside the funeral of a fallen soldier returned from the war in Iraq. Against the backdrop of a grieving family was a small group of protesters, oblivious not only to their own callousness, but the far-reaching consequences of their hypocrisy. Hypocrisy and its consequences have always been with us, but far more troubling lately is the scope of disinformation and duplicity spewing from the mouths of political “leaders”. Few things are more dangerous and destructive than lies masquerading as truth, and the wholesaling of incongruent beliefs by shrewd and powerful people.

December 2, 2020July 12, 2021

ALWAYS BUILD DIGNITY

Early in my career, a mentor provided me with a piece of wise counsel: “Always build dignity”. Over the last 40 years, those words have challenged me often. Given the ease with which we can spout critical words, particularly within the tattered fabric of our country, perhaps those three little words, can provide a meaningful balm to what ails us. A conscious effort to building dignity, I submit, is a most worthy goal in both our personal lives and as well in the governance of our country.

November 30, 2020December 30, 2020

MACHIAVELLIAN TO THE CORE

In 1513 Niccolo Machiavelli wrote a short book titled The Prince. In it he counsels a young prince who unexpectedly ascends to the throne on how to handle himself and the affairs of state. The essence of Machiavelli’s counsel is do whatever you must to accumulate power, stay in power, and no matter how dastardly your plans and deeds, always try to look virtuous. Tragically, a wealth of evidence suggests that President Trump has been Machiavellian to the core. He has masterfully employed deception, manipulation and deceit to appear virtuous and have the best interest of the American people at heart, while acting in his own self-interest.

October 11, 2020October 11, 2020

TAKING A BROAD PROLIFE PERSPECTIVE WITH US TO THE POLLS

For those of us who want to significantly reduce abortions and find the conduct of many traditionally ProLife candidates antithetical to our Biblical values, let me suggest a way forward out of the voting conundrum we now face. As a conservative and a Republican for over 40 years, I submit that being ProLife means not only protecting unborn children but protecting and building up the lives of those already born. If we believe in this broader definition of being ProLife, our concern for protecting life should extend beyond reducing abortions, to enabling healthy and fruitful lives for all children. Valuing the life of innocent children should therefore include supporting policies that provide all children with healthcare, a quality education, protection from harmful pollutants, keeping them with their parents, reducing racial tensions, and keeping them out poverty.

August 23, 2020August 23, 2020

A PROLIFE VOTING ALTERNATIVE

For those of us who are ProLife and find some candidates who purport to be “ProLife” but behave in ways contrary to our Biblical values, let me suggest a way out of the voting conundrum we now face. As a conservative and a Republican for over 40 years, instead of voting for an incumbent whose conduct we find appalling, let me suggest we withhold supporting them and focus on living out our faith by providing additional support to programs that have been successful at reducing unwanted pregnancies and abortions.