30thApril2011 What's yours is mine?

Maybe the greatest blot on the record of our founding fathers is their failure to deal appropriately with the issue of slavery.  It's hard to understand how men so brilliant, who wrote so eloquently about how "all men are created equal," could have have been so blind as to institutionalize slavery in the Constitution.  Arguments must have been advanced that pointed out the inconsistency of their words and their actions.  Yet slavery was allowed to continue, likely because it was politically expedient.  A nation needed creating, and the support of influential, slave-holding men was needed.

I expect that Americans come closer to 100% agreement on the issue of slavery than on any other issue.  It's bad.  It's a moral evil.  We shouldn't have done it.

Yet, I believe the vast majority of Americans still endorse slavery, though of a different type.  Most believe and promulgate the idea that somehow or other they are entitled to the fruit of another person's labor, that they have a right to take someone else's property, even at the point of a gun.  Most believe this because they believe and promulgate the idea that it's alright and a moral good to forcibly redistribute wealth.

Examples of how Americans endorse the forcible redistribution of wealth are legion.  The financing of public education is one.  I expect that Americans also come pretty close to 100% agreement that the education of children is a good thing.  Yet many Americans are not willing to pay the cost of their children's education. They believe this education should be "free."  Of course, they would acknowledge that there is a cost to the education of their children; they just think they shouldn't have to pay it, at least not all of it, and usually not even most of it.  "Society" should pay this cost, for all kinds of good reasons.  And yet, in reality, "society" is a sort of fiction.  If society has any resources, it's only because the individuals within it have their own resources, usually acquired as a result of their labor.  Society pays only because the individuals in it are forced to pay, and those individuals who pay may have little or no say as to the kind of education they're financing.  It's possible in today's America that a person may be paying, whether he agrees or not, to teach children as young as kindergarteners that homosexual sex is on a moral par with heterosexual, married sex.  It's also possible he may be paying, whether he agrees or not, to teach students that there is no God, or if there is, he doesn't really matter or isn't any more worthy of study or worship than Buddha, Allah, Gaia, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster.  If an individual decides he no longer wants to finance a particular educational enterprise because it teaches students ideas that are anathema to him or because it's doing a lousy job educating the students, or for whatever reason, sooner or later, if he persists in the refusal to pay, someone with a gun is gonna visit him.

I believe in the value of education and can provide ample proof of that belief both from my behavior and from my bank statement.  But I don't believe I have the right to go to my neighbor, take some of his property by force, and use it to educate my children.  Being poor doesn't give me that right and neither does being rich.  I don't believe I'd have that right even if everyone else in America agreed with me and voted that it was OK for me to go to my neighbor and take some of his property by force and use it to educate my children and/or anyone else's children.

But that's how wealth redistribution works.  Someone has an idea for a project, a really good, worthwhile project.  It'll only directly benefit a certain group of people, but it's a really worthwhile project.  Unfortunately, he doesn't have the money to pay for it.  Now his neighbor's got money.  In fact, he's got bags full of the stuff just laying around.  But, for whatever reason, his neighbor isn't willing to fork over the cash, and he knows he can't just go take it by force, however much he covets it.  Still, he believes that because his project is so worthwhile, so beneficial, he's somehow more entitled to his neighbor's money than even his neighbor is.  So he goes to St. Paul or Washington and convinces a group of politicians that he's right, so that they'll go to his neighbor and take the money by force.  If it turns out that the neighbor resists, sooner or later someone with a gun will show up.  The neighbor is forced to give up part of the fruit of his labor to pay for someone else's project, whether he agrees with it or not.  It usually turns out that such an action is also politically expedient.  Now the politicians will have some new friends who will vote for them and maybe even donate money to their campaigns.  The neighbor doesn't really matter to the politicians.  After all, he's only one vote.

If someone or some group is entitled to any of the fruit of my labor, to that extent I'm his slave.  I don't care what the motive is.

16thApril2011 How've the ears been?

One day I was seeing a woman in her late 80s.  She was in remarkably good shape and very personable so it was a lot of fun just talking to her.  Unfortunately, her husband was chronically ill and living in a nursing home.  She went to see him every day.


As I started to examine her, I noticed a bracelet she was wearing.  I commented on it and she told me it was a present from her children on the occasion of her 50th wedding anniversary.  I congratulated her and asked her how long she'd been married now.  She replied, "Sixty-three years."  


It's my practice to ask symptom-related questions as I examine someone and shortly after her answer I was ready to examine her ears.  When I asked her, "How've the ears been?" she smiled wistfully & replied, "Oh, they've been wonderful years."

2ndApril2011 April in Minnesota

Another April has begun.  When someone from someplace else where it's warmer in the winter asks me about living in Minnesota, I often comment that April is my least favorite month.  It just seems like it ought to be nicer, greener, warmer, floweryer.  Instead, it's cold, gray, and damp.  The first year I spent in Minnesota it snowed 8 inches on the 30th of April.  I've spent many April Saturdays watching youth soccer games in the cold, rain, & even snow.  Even today, with a beautiful, cloudless sky, there's still a blanket of snow covering most of my back yard.  


And yet, by April winter is, in fact, gone & it is Spring.  Spring is probably beautiful everywhere, but there's something emotionally electrifying about Spring in Minnesota.  It's a thrill to see the first robin (my wife & I have a sort of contest:  which one will be the first to see a robin.  I won this year.  When I called her to tell her that I'd seen a robin on the way to work, she replied that she'd already seen one two days earlier, but since she didn't say anything to me about it, I declared that it didn't count).  And after I see the first robin, they're suddenly all over place.  Then the crocuses start to come up.  Then the tulips.  Then the daffodils.  The willows start to look a little greener.  Each new sign that the world is waking up is encouraging.  And if I'm paying attention, I've got something to be encouraged about every day.  


Moreover, by April we're playing baseball again (if the Twins had opened last night at Target Field they'd've been playing on a wet field in 40 degrees; instead they got creamed inside the dome in Toronto).  By April all the trout streams are open (& I hope to go fishing today).  In April, one starts to see one's neighbors again, and more & more people are out for walks and jogs and even bike rides. 


And so, today, even during my least favorite month, I'm very encouraged and grateful to God for the beauty and order of the world, for the change of the seasons, for the end of another winter, and for plenty to do today.