Volume 7, Issue 6
Every President since Dwight D. Eisenhower has addressed the formal gathering.
This year, an issue was raised by both the President and Congressional sponsors in reference to the generating beliefs of the definition and value of life. Recent laws at the state level governing abortion presented for consideration leave a critical question of life unsettled. Liberals argue that a baby born by accident in a late-term abortion may have its life terminated. Their point is that the baby isn’t a person until it takes a breath. Therefore, ending its life is an extension of abortion rights. Many conservatives, and particularly religious conservatives, believe that life begins at conception. A fetus should not be terminated through intervention or unnatural procedures abhorrent to prenatal development. A child requires nurturing and support up to the age of twelve. Withdrawing support or intervening in the child’s life is no different from conception through early childhood. Without nurturing and protection, the child will perish.
Arguing the viability of a newborn baby in the delivery room, ready to take a breath in the normal process of birth, is not a debate about a woman’s right to her body. She can leave the hospital without the baby. The consideration is a different view of the definition and purpose of existence.
What certain Members of Congress and the President now understand is that many issues that divide us are not based on Republican versus Democrat, Conservatives versus Liberals, or even philosophical debates about classical forms of government. The debate is about the interpretation of why we exist.
The national press would have Americans believe that political conflict revolves around the powerful suppressing the poor and unfortunate. The essence of the acrimony is beyond even philosophical expression. It is base emotional perceptions.
The conflict about the wall on the southern border of the United States is more about the anathema of its image rather than whether it makes practical sense. A few Members of Congress are opposed even to a fence. The concern is less about the wall. They believe in defined benefits for all who seek to live in the United States. The maintenance of American societal stability is not the priority.
Socialism is now an economic concept openly embraced by progressives. It has never worked as a government concept in 6,000 years of recorded history. Yet, it continues to be advocated. Socialists claim to be idealists pursuing economic equality. What they fear is freedom. Why? Because independence produces different outcomes. Individual accountability is a principle. What they really believe and desire is standardization and the government-forced perceived equality of equal outcomes. One percent of the wealthy in New Jersey pays 58% of all taxes in that state now. Raising taxes on the wealthy will not produce equal outcomes. But socialism will restrict opportunity. Opportunity is not the priority.
Three formally announced 2020 Democratic candidates for President have called for the elimination of private health insurance. They propose single-payer government health care. One hundred eighty million Americans and their families have private health insurance. They are satisfied with their health care. Twenty million Americans do struggle to obtain affordable health insurance. These progressive candidates would take away the rights of 180 million Americans to arguably address the needs of 20 million Americans. Common sense dictates policy that would directly subsidize the 20 million. The debate is not about universal health care. The standardization of universal outcomes is the priority.
First Amendment rights have now become part and parcel to this basic moral debate about the purpose of humanity. Defiant Members of Congress are protected by freedom of speech when they attack Israel, as long as they distinguish Israel from Jewish people in general. Their deeply held cultural and religious beliefs are that Israel does not have a right to exist as a nation. The pronouncement of these beliefs is protected by their right of free speech.
Another First Amendment right, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” is now under secondary historical review. Obviously, the Founding Fathers felt very strongly about religious liberty to make it the first right of the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights. Yet, when in conflict with right-to-life or beliefs of traditional marriage, religious rights are now relegated to some insignificant afterthought and not protected by freedom of speech. For, if spoken outwardly, some long-standing religious principles are now attacked as hate speech. And, unlike those Members of Congress who attack Israel, their speech is not protected.
Most recently, the President, in his State of the Union Speech, has been vilified by the national press for raising the specter of what they term American Exceptionalism. That characterization requires reflective analysis.
Name another country in the world doing better in providing opportunity and services for their citizens than the United States of America. Whether you are a capitalist or a socialist, progressive or conservative, religious or atheistic, the sought goals and objectives, as measured by deliverables, is exceptional in the United States as compared to any other sovereign in the world.
Why, then, do we not point to ourselves as exceptional in opportunity?
In a recent survey conducted by litigants in cases currently before the Supreme Court, there were three terms that over 70% of the American public agreed were positive, regardless of culture or ideology. They were freedom, liberty, and constitutional rights.
There is no other country in the world, in its current structure, that performs more admirably than America in advancing and protecting these principles. I ask again, if this is what we agree upon as a people, then why not champion ourselves as the standard going forward?
To achieve a better future requires faith in a cause greater than ourselves. In 1953, Dwight D. Eisenhower, a businessman, a general, a diplomat, a war hero, and a President, knew instinctively that, in the definition and purpose of existence, one had to understand that each individual was not the center of that purpose.
To escape from this chasm of division, we must first reach, if not agreement, respect for the ancient realization that the human race is special in our hope of commonality. Even in our cultural and religious differences, we must not distort our view of the purpose of life.
We received life from our ancestors. In that generational gift, we were taught eternal principles. By the lessons of these principles, learned through history, our views of the definition and purpose of existence were forged.
Holding on to what we know is moral in purpose has enhanced the dignity of mankind. This is our gift to our children.
My name is Marc Nuttle and this is what I believe.
What do you believe?