For better or worse, the nuclear family is the basic structural unit of every society and nation on earth. Even societies which recognize the legitimacy of such extended family forms as clans and tribes, still require nuclear families as the irreducible unit to comprise them. No human generational continuity with such organization is possible without joint sexual activity of one man and one woman.
Feminists say child-bearing is slavery, and marriage is therefore male chauvinist oppression of women. They call for the complete destruction of the marriage institution as a major step towards their freedom. Let us be sufficiently politically-incorrect to follow this road, and see, to where it eventually leads.
With nobody alive today having children, the earth would become completely de-populated in about one century, as people die without leaving any progeny. Shrinkage of the population on such a drastic scale would bring on excruciatingly painful economic adjustments, as the economy shrinks concommitantly with the population. This may make the environmentalists very happy in the short run, as the earth returns to a pristine state of wilderness existence. But they, too, would eventually find their own lives severely impacted by extreme economic reversals. Economic growth with population shrinkage is completely incongruous.
With the crashing of the marriage institution would also come the loss of all private property. The identification of all property as being private necessarily involves legal association of the property with a family name, to distinguish its unique personal ownership from all other possibilities of possession arrangement.
Karl Marx advocated destruction of the family for this reason, saying private property ownership makes a virtue out of greed. But the feminists, without private property ownership of their own, will likewise have no power base from which to rule the rest of society as they wish. So, the abolition of the private family in favor of some form of government-administered communal existence would render the rise of feminism as a form of special socio-economic priviledge highly unlikely to occur.
Feminists say if only maledom did not exist, their lives would be immeasurably happier. But women still have economic and socio-political conflicts among themselves which would not immediately and automatically disappear with the total demise of maledom.
What about gender role reversals, as some more moderate feminists advocate? Some men are gradually agreeing to such accomodations, and this writer has frequently wondered, what America would look like with all levers of government power and authority monopolized by the distaff side. It is indeed an intriguing question. But women would need to accept concommitant increase of responsibility with their expansion of political power. As their preoccupation with careers trumps traditional marriage and family life, they would rule over a populace faced with the severe economic consequences of dire population shrinkage. Planning accordingly would be an especially monumental task for an all-female government, with the institution of the family gone, and all private property with it.
It is often said that politics makes strange bed-fellows. In this case, the feminists, in their quest for total sexual freedom, have a staunch ally in pornography-king Larry Flynt and his ideological "progeny". They may both agree to the proposition of free sex for any consenting adults anywhere and any time. But finally, the feminists should be warned that this one objective is all the two camps share in common, and in the purveyors of pornography, they are likely to face mortal foes otherwise.
-Lawrence K. Marsh
Friday, March 27, 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
The "Hate Crimes" Question
Let's face it, folks! ALL crimes are hate crimes, and has anybody ever heard of a "love crime"? All crimes are motivated and driven by hate directed at least towards society-at-large, if not towards certain targeted individual people.
Why should it be somehow more egregious, to inflict criminal violence upon members of certain segments or groups of our society, than to inflict the same upon any of the rest of us? Such law is clearly a violation of the U.S. Constitution 14th amendment. Equal justice under law is the mantra carved in marble on the facade of our supposedly-auguste and noble U.S. Supreme Court. That is one of the core moral values we as Americans should all live by.
-Lawrence K. Marsh
Why should it be somehow more egregious, to inflict criminal violence upon members of certain segments or groups of our society, than to inflict the same upon any of the rest of us? Such law is clearly a violation of the U.S. Constitution 14th amendment. Equal justice under law is the mantra carved in marble on the facade of our supposedly-auguste and noble U.S. Supreme Court. That is one of the core moral values we as Americans should all live by.
-Lawrence K. Marsh
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Limits of Liberty
In America today, there is much debate both in government circles and among the public-at-large, as to how much liberty should be afforded to the general populace. There is in evidence today a strong desire to curtail the freedoms of other people, if their exercise of it rubs us the wrong way, and rattles our cages. Protection of people's feelings against all possible emotional injury seems to trump First Amendment free speech rights in particular these days. Both the political Left and the political Right are guilty of seeking recission of freedom on these grounds.
The problem with this approach to law and justice in controlling behaviour is that we do have the 14th amendment in our Constitution. One man's trash is another man's treasure, and one man's villain is another man's hero. So, how can we protect everybody's feelings against all possible sense of offendedness in a way that meets 14th amendment requirements? The answer is simple: that cannot be done!
In deciding which actions and modes of behaviour should be permitted and which should be prohibited, we should just ask four questions: 1)Does the action or behaviour inflict physical violence and injury upon anybody? 2)Does the action or behaviour inflict damage and destruction upon the properties of others, without the consent of the owner(s)? 3)Does the behaviour pick anybody's pocket or bank account? And 4)Do all parties directly involved in the behaviour or action voluntarily agree to it? If the answer to any one of the first three questions is "YES" and the answer to the fourth question is "NO", then the action or behaviour should be legally prohibited. But if the answer to all three of the first three questions is "NO" and the answer to the fourth question is "YES", then the behaviour or action should be permitted, and third-party observer offendedness be damned!
Collective society also has rights; however, the burden of proof is always on the claimant. America was not originally established as an absolute majoritarian democracy; rather, it was established as a republic, in the which individual citizens SHALL be granted certain enumerated freedoms which cannot be rescinded either by government or by majority will of the people. As Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman once put it, VOX POPULI VOX HUMBUG! If collective society-at-large would claim that the actions or behaviours of free individuals threatens to somehow damage society-at-large, the burden of proof in the matter should be on the collective entity rather than upon the individual. As the most vulnerable in our society and in our nation, individuals need the shield of the law most of all, against either maddened mob-ocracy or government goon-squads.
The Bible book of Matthew 18:12-14, records the words of Jesus Christ, telling His apostles the story of the Good Shepherd, who leaves the flock of 99 sheep to look for the one which is lost. This parable tells us that God unequivocally considers each and every individual supremely precious in His sight. Here is the basis of individual civil liberties, in the which the nation's founders proclaimed absolute inviolability as man's "natural God-given right".
Sad to say, as America turns its collective back upon God and the positivist school of legal thought replaces the naturalist one of our nation's founders, the proposition possesses the collective American mind that rights are from the generosity of government, to be granted or rescinded at its political convenience. We cannot claim to be a truly free nation, while living in fear of what may happen to us, if our neighbor is also free. Freedom is indeed risky business, but America was not established by cowards. How much longer will the American flag wave o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? The nation's founders observe us today from their heavenly abodes with the gravest of concern.
-Lawrence K. Marsh
The problem with this approach to law and justice in controlling behaviour is that we do have the 14th amendment in our Constitution. One man's trash is another man's treasure, and one man's villain is another man's hero. So, how can we protect everybody's feelings against all possible sense of offendedness in a way that meets 14th amendment requirements? The answer is simple: that cannot be done!
In deciding which actions and modes of behaviour should be permitted and which should be prohibited, we should just ask four questions: 1)Does the action or behaviour inflict physical violence and injury upon anybody? 2)Does the action or behaviour inflict damage and destruction upon the properties of others, without the consent of the owner(s)? 3)Does the behaviour pick anybody's pocket or bank account? And 4)Do all parties directly involved in the behaviour or action voluntarily agree to it? If the answer to any one of the first three questions is "YES" and the answer to the fourth question is "NO", then the action or behaviour should be legally prohibited. But if the answer to all three of the first three questions is "NO" and the answer to the fourth question is "YES", then the behaviour or action should be permitted, and third-party observer offendedness be damned!
Collective society also has rights; however, the burden of proof is always on the claimant. America was not originally established as an absolute majoritarian democracy; rather, it was established as a republic, in the which individual citizens SHALL be granted certain enumerated freedoms which cannot be rescinded either by government or by majority will of the people. As Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman once put it, VOX POPULI VOX HUMBUG! If collective society-at-large would claim that the actions or behaviours of free individuals threatens to somehow damage society-at-large, the burden of proof in the matter should be on the collective entity rather than upon the individual. As the most vulnerable in our society and in our nation, individuals need the shield of the law most of all, against either maddened mob-ocracy or government goon-squads.
The Bible book of Matthew 18:12-14, records the words of Jesus Christ, telling His apostles the story of the Good Shepherd, who leaves the flock of 99 sheep to look for the one which is lost. This parable tells us that God unequivocally considers each and every individual supremely precious in His sight. Here is the basis of individual civil liberties, in the which the nation's founders proclaimed absolute inviolability as man's "natural God-given right".
Sad to say, as America turns its collective back upon God and the positivist school of legal thought replaces the naturalist one of our nation's founders, the proposition possesses the collective American mind that rights are from the generosity of government, to be granted or rescinded at its political convenience. We cannot claim to be a truly free nation, while living in fear of what may happen to us, if our neighbor is also free. Freedom is indeed risky business, but America was not established by cowards. How much longer will the American flag wave o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? The nation's founders observe us today from their heavenly abodes with the gravest of concern.
-Lawrence K. Marsh
Monday, March 23, 2009
Islam In Our Midst
"The good men do is oft interred with their bones, but the evil they do lives after them." So wrote William Shakespeare in his play, "Julius Caesar" assigning these words to Marcus Antonius in oration at Julius Caesar's funeral.
So it is, too, with Islam in America after September 11, 2001. Because the attacks on the Twin Towers in New York City and the Pentagon on that day were perpetrated by Muslims, in the name of Islam, the entire religion became in the collective American mind a categorical and unconditional evil. Forgotten is the fact that the American government declined to call to account the particular Islamic nations from which the terrorists came, i.e. Saudi Arabia and Egypt. These are supposed friends of the United States, and could have easily prevented the tragedy. Instead, hysteric presumption of guilt by association in America has spoiled universally the repute of all Muslims everywhere, good and evil alike.
It is incumbent upon all Americans to remember that Islamic Americans among us still enjoy all the same religious protections and rights under the U.S. Constitution First Amendment which the rest of us enjoy. At the same time, it would be well for all Islamic Americans to eschew as far as possible all association with their foreign co-religionists. Islam under the U.S. Constitution, not Islam under the Shari'ah, must be the watchword for Islamic Americans. The acceptance of foreign Muslim country money to finance construction of mosques and related institutions will cast upon Muslims among us an appearance of being a dangerous domestic "fifth column" of subversion on behalf of foreign Islamic country interests. Indeed, in the Islamic mind, a co-religionist brotherhood supersedes nationalist identities.
How should America respond to the Islamic challenge? While America has no official religion per se, its ruling government institutions and precepts are at least vaguely Christian in philosophical outlook. Americans do "render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's", in response to a teaching from Jesus Christ.
Given the overt propensity of foreign Muslims to resort to terrorist violence as their method of choice by which to spread their religious faith, America would be very wise, to close its doors to further immigration from Islamic nations. As a sovereign country, America does not owe the rest of the world a living. By the same token, Islamic Americans have equal legal right of access to mass electronic and print communications media as do other religious groups, to broadcast their message as a peaceful effort to proselytize America to Islam. They might be well-advised that honey attracts more flies than vinegar, and good ideas stand well on their own merit, without any backing of physical force and violence to guarantee their implementation.
All Americans must remember these sage words of Thomas Jefferson: "It is in our lives, and not from our words, that our religion must be read."
-Lawrence K. Marsh
So it is, too, with Islam in America after September 11, 2001. Because the attacks on the Twin Towers in New York City and the Pentagon on that day were perpetrated by Muslims, in the name of Islam, the entire religion became in the collective American mind a categorical and unconditional evil. Forgotten is the fact that the American government declined to call to account the particular Islamic nations from which the terrorists came, i.e. Saudi Arabia and Egypt. These are supposed friends of the United States, and could have easily prevented the tragedy. Instead, hysteric presumption of guilt by association in America has spoiled universally the repute of all Muslims everywhere, good and evil alike.
It is incumbent upon all Americans to remember that Islamic Americans among us still enjoy all the same religious protections and rights under the U.S. Constitution First Amendment which the rest of us enjoy. At the same time, it would be well for all Islamic Americans to eschew as far as possible all association with their foreign co-religionists. Islam under the U.S. Constitution, not Islam under the Shari'ah, must be the watchword for Islamic Americans. The acceptance of foreign Muslim country money to finance construction of mosques and related institutions will cast upon Muslims among us an appearance of being a dangerous domestic "fifth column" of subversion on behalf of foreign Islamic country interests. Indeed, in the Islamic mind, a co-religionist brotherhood supersedes nationalist identities.
How should America respond to the Islamic challenge? While America has no official religion per se, its ruling government institutions and precepts are at least vaguely Christian in philosophical outlook. Americans do "render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's", in response to a teaching from Jesus Christ.
Given the overt propensity of foreign Muslims to resort to terrorist violence as their method of choice by which to spread their religious faith, America would be very wise, to close its doors to further immigration from Islamic nations. As a sovereign country, America does not owe the rest of the world a living. By the same token, Islamic Americans have equal legal right of access to mass electronic and print communications media as do other religious groups, to broadcast their message as a peaceful effort to proselytize America to Islam. They might be well-advised that honey attracts more flies than vinegar, and good ideas stand well on their own merit, without any backing of physical force and violence to guarantee their implementation.
All Americans must remember these sage words of Thomas Jefferson: "It is in our lives, and not from our words, that our religion must be read."
-Lawrence K. Marsh
Thursday, March 19, 2009
LKM To Black America: President Barack Obama is Not One of You!
The election of Barack Obama to the American presidency is a historic first, i.e. someone of African descent is now our President. However, there is one misconception in the collective mind of black African-Americans which needs to be cleared up: He is not "one of you"!
Most black African-Americans are descendants from the American pre-Civil War slavery experience. However, the African slave trade to the United States came from West African countries. Barack Obama's people came from Kenya, an East African country. Africa is a huge continent, and odds are strongly against any possibility that slave traders from America transported any East Africans to the African West coast, by either land or sea.
Barack Obama was born in 1961, and his mother hustled him out of the United States to live first in Great Britain and then in Indonesia, all during the 1960s civil rights struggle in the United States. His birth certificate, the legal validity of which is still in doubt to this day, claims that he was born in Hawaii. Hawaii shares none of the experiences of racism and slavery of the former Confederate Southern states.
Hence, neither Barack Obama nor any of his African ancestors faced any of the American experiences with racism and slavery suffered historically by most black African-Americans. No, black African-America, from a historic perspective, President Barack Obama is not "one of you"!
Most black African-Americans are descendants from the American pre-Civil War slavery experience. However, the African slave trade to the United States came from West African countries. Barack Obama's people came from Kenya, an East African country. Africa is a huge continent, and odds are strongly against any possibility that slave traders from America transported any East Africans to the African West coast, by either land or sea.
Barack Obama was born in 1961, and his mother hustled him out of the United States to live first in Great Britain and then in Indonesia, all during the 1960s civil rights struggle in the United States. His birth certificate, the legal validity of which is still in doubt to this day, claims that he was born in Hawaii. Hawaii shares none of the experiences of racism and slavery of the former Confederate Southern states.
Hence, neither Barack Obama nor any of his African ancestors faced any of the American experiences with racism and slavery suffered historically by most black African-Americans. No, black African-America, from a historic perspective, President Barack Obama is not "one of you"!
Saturday, March 14, 2009
God Bless Archie Bunker!
For those of us old enough to remember the show "All In The Family", featuring Archie Bunker, his wife the "Ding-Bat", his daughter Gloria a.k.a. "little goil", and the son-in-law Michael Stivic a.k.a. "the meat-head", some of us were deeply offended by it, while many more of us laughed at it like we have never laughed before. Admittedly, the show had a uniquely-cathartic effect on all of us: we were offended, we were outraged, we were provoked to side-splitting laughter for the exact same reason. THE SHOW HIT HOME, RIGHT WHERE WE ALL LIVE!
Who among us does not have any of the bigotries and prejudices displayed by Archie Bunker? There is a certain amount of "Archie Bunker" in all of us, insofar as we find it difficult to accept other people who, in one way or another, are not exactly like us, be the difference one of race, gender, religion, sexual orientation or national origin. "Those people, those people; they, they, they...", Archie Bunker used to say. At the same time, his black African-American neighbor George Jefferson often expounded on his displeasure against white people as well. However, when on one episode it began to look like Puerto Ricans might move into the vacant house on the other side of the Bunkers, Archie Bunker and George Jefferson quickly became close allies to the common cause of keeping a third ethnicity out of their neighborhood. As it happened, that house became occupied by an Italian-Irish mixed-marriage couple who were both Catholics, and Archie Bunker had a real field-day with Catholics as well. "First there's Christians and then there's Catholics!"
Perhaps Archie Bunker was not as smooth, sophisticated and educated we might have wished him to be. But if we examine the extenuating circumstance that he was a child of America's 1930s Great Depression, we might view him with a little more compassion. Sure, he was rough-and-gruff. But the Great Depression forced him to leave school, and hustle to find a job to support his family when fully half of America's work-force was unemployed and jobs did not exist.
Who was the REAL bigot on that show? Arguably, it was the meat-head, Michael Stivic. Michael Stivic irresponsibly married a woman before he was finished with his schooling and well-settled into a career, by which he would maintain his financial independence. He felt himself at liberty to just drop in on the Bunker household and sponge off of that family, all the while frequently subjecting Archie to continuous ridicule with a most abject lack of gratitude for the latter's financial largesse to him. Michael Stivic was the product of far better economic times which afforded to him educational opportunities Archie Bunker never had. Some say Archie Bunker was not a good Christian, but I disagree! He would have been within his legal rights to expel Michael Stivic and his daughter Gloria from their home at any time, because Michael Stivic, not Archie Bunker, was responsible for the financial welfare of his wife Gloria. Instead, Archie Bunker bore up magnificently under the heavy cross of his son-in-law's self-righteous deprecations against him. Granting that it was insensitive of Archie to call his son-in-law "dumb Polack meat-head college student", do we not all have our "terms of endearment" for persons who by nationality are strange to us? We may not overtly enunciate them, but such thoughts still occupy the mind!
The music composer Aaron Copland wrote a magnificent trumpet fanfare called, "Fanfare for The Common Man". I would like to nick-name it, "Fanfare for Archie Bunker". It celebrates in music the real heroes of the American scene: the millions of average "Joe plumbers" among us who rise up early in the morning, faithfully going to work every day, work long hard hours through often-difficult and trying experiences on the job, and finally coming home tired in the evening. How rightful they are, to then plop themselves down in their easy-chairs, turn on the TV, and tell their "Edith"s to "get me a beer"! John Wayne once said of the women's movement: "Women can do anything they want to....as long as they have supper ready for us men when we get home from work." I agree: Without the "Joe plumbers", this nation would have no back-bone and no existence at all!
God bless America, God bless Archie Bunker! Forever may his cathartic service to our nation on TV be remembered! It also gave minority groups in our nation whom Archie Bunker ridiculed, a valuable lesson: Don't fight with the Archie Bunkers of this world, just play along with them! One time when Archie Bunker learned that a black woman nurse was going to donate blood to him during a surgical operation, he became all flustered. But the nurse just played along with him and said when he awakened from his surgery, he would "have a strange craving for watermelon!"
-Lawrence K. Marsh
-Lawrence K. Marsh
Who among us does not have any of the bigotries and prejudices displayed by Archie Bunker? There is a certain amount of "Archie Bunker" in all of us, insofar as we find it difficult to accept other people who, in one way or another, are not exactly like us, be the difference one of race, gender, religion, sexual orientation or national origin. "Those people, those people; they, they, they...", Archie Bunker used to say. At the same time, his black African-American neighbor George Jefferson often expounded on his displeasure against white people as well. However, when on one episode it began to look like Puerto Ricans might move into the vacant house on the other side of the Bunkers, Archie Bunker and George Jefferson quickly became close allies to the common cause of keeping a third ethnicity out of their neighborhood. As it happened, that house became occupied by an Italian-Irish mixed-marriage couple who were both Catholics, and Archie Bunker had a real field-day with Catholics as well. "First there's Christians and then there's Catholics!"
Perhaps Archie Bunker was not as smooth, sophisticated and educated we might have wished him to be. But if we examine the extenuating circumstance that he was a child of America's 1930s Great Depression, we might view him with a little more compassion. Sure, he was rough-and-gruff. But the Great Depression forced him to leave school, and hustle to find a job to support his family when fully half of America's work-force was unemployed and jobs did not exist.
Who was the REAL bigot on that show? Arguably, it was the meat-head, Michael Stivic. Michael Stivic irresponsibly married a woman before he was finished with his schooling and well-settled into a career, by which he would maintain his financial independence. He felt himself at liberty to just drop in on the Bunker household and sponge off of that family, all the while frequently subjecting Archie to continuous ridicule with a most abject lack of gratitude for the latter's financial largesse to him. Michael Stivic was the product of far better economic times which afforded to him educational opportunities Archie Bunker never had. Some say Archie Bunker was not a good Christian, but I disagree! He would have been within his legal rights to expel Michael Stivic and his daughter Gloria from their home at any time, because Michael Stivic, not Archie Bunker, was responsible for the financial welfare of his wife Gloria. Instead, Archie Bunker bore up magnificently under the heavy cross of his son-in-law's self-righteous deprecations against him. Granting that it was insensitive of Archie to call his son-in-law "dumb Polack meat-head college student", do we not all have our "terms of endearment" for persons who by nationality are strange to us? We may not overtly enunciate them, but such thoughts still occupy the mind!
The music composer Aaron Copland wrote a magnificent trumpet fanfare called, "Fanfare for The Common Man". I would like to nick-name it, "Fanfare for Archie Bunker". It celebrates in music the real heroes of the American scene: the millions of average "Joe plumbers" among us who rise up early in the morning, faithfully going to work every day, work long hard hours through often-difficult and trying experiences on the job, and finally coming home tired in the evening. How rightful they are, to then plop themselves down in their easy-chairs, turn on the TV, and tell their "Edith"s to "get me a beer"! John Wayne once said of the women's movement: "Women can do anything they want to....as long as they have supper ready for us men when we get home from work." I agree: Without the "Joe plumbers", this nation would have no back-bone and no existence at all!
God bless America, God bless Archie Bunker! Forever may his cathartic service to our nation on TV be remembered! It also gave minority groups in our nation whom Archie Bunker ridiculed, a valuable lesson: Don't fight with the Archie Bunkers of this world, just play along with them! One time when Archie Bunker learned that a black woman nurse was going to donate blood to him during a surgical operation, he became all flustered. But the nurse just played along with him and said when he awakened from his surgery, he would "have a strange craving for watermelon!"
-Lawrence K. Marsh
-Lawrence K. Marsh
Friday, March 13, 2009
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is Correct!
Last month, which marked African-American Cultural Heritage month, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder called America a "nation of cowards" for its collective timidity to openly discuss race relations issues. He is correct!
The nation is long-overdue for such discussion, provided that its goal is the arrival at historic and scientific truth, and not political indoctrinations into political correctness. Some very important questions on this topic must first be raised.
Firstly, what is race? Is it merely a figment of our collective social imagination, or does it have scientific and historic reality to it? We should begin by dispelling the myth that skin-color alone defines it: Besides the many different peoples of Africa, the Dravids of South India, the peoples of Papua New Guinea, and the Maori of Australia and New Zealand also have dark-colored skins. But there is to date no evidence proving a common origin for these various peoples. Such factors as differences in hair and skin textures, prevalence of differing blood-types between racial groups, and differences of bone structure may also figure in, to delineate races, one from another.
Most people today are of varied racial heritage, very few are pure, without any historic contribution to their genetic configuration from other distinct groups. DNA testings could easily corroborate this claim.
Some say race is the result of environmental pressures exerted on people over eons of time, but this claim has yet to be proven. If this claim is true, for example, why are not the peoples of South America living within the same latitudes as the central third of Africa also of the same race or skin-color? The scientific evidence suggests that any one individual's race would remain indefinitely constant down through many successive generations, despite one generation moving to a different environment and then the descendants remaining there forever. The distribution of both light-skinned and dark-skinned peoples would appear to span a wide diversity of physical climates.
What about the use of racial labels? These are often, regrettably, of inaccurate application. For example, the term "African-American" ignores the fact that Africa is a continent, not a race, and it therefore includes many divergent peoples, including Arabs and Berbers of North Africa and Dutch Afrikaans whites of South Africa, as well as the darker-skinned denizens of the African continent elsewhere. Also, the word "Hispanic" cannot denote a race. It merely denotes a language, spoken by persons of considerable variety of skin color.
In short, it is extremely difficult to clearly delineate, for government legal purposes, one racial group from another. The best socio-political solution to the dilemma is to adhere to the U.S. Constitution 14th amendment, and deny the claims of any creditor race or debtor race existing in the United States. Under the law, race should not matter.
There are a few embarrassing proverbial "elephants in the living room" on the topic of race. Why do African-Americans dominate the sports scene, while East Asians and Jews almost uniformly excel head-and-shoulders above everybody else in academia? But given that physical and intellectual supremacies can be used for wicked and evil as well as for virtuous purposes, we need not give the topic more than superficial pause for reflection.
-Lawrence K. Marsh
The nation is long-overdue for such discussion, provided that its goal is the arrival at historic and scientific truth, and not political indoctrinations into political correctness. Some very important questions on this topic must first be raised.
Firstly, what is race? Is it merely a figment of our collective social imagination, or does it have scientific and historic reality to it? We should begin by dispelling the myth that skin-color alone defines it: Besides the many different peoples of Africa, the Dravids of South India, the peoples of Papua New Guinea, and the Maori of Australia and New Zealand also have dark-colored skins. But there is to date no evidence proving a common origin for these various peoples. Such factors as differences in hair and skin textures, prevalence of differing blood-types between racial groups, and differences of bone structure may also figure in, to delineate races, one from another.
Most people today are of varied racial heritage, very few are pure, without any historic contribution to their genetic configuration from other distinct groups. DNA testings could easily corroborate this claim.
Some say race is the result of environmental pressures exerted on people over eons of time, but this claim has yet to be proven. If this claim is true, for example, why are not the peoples of South America living within the same latitudes as the central third of Africa also of the same race or skin-color? The scientific evidence suggests that any one individual's race would remain indefinitely constant down through many successive generations, despite one generation moving to a different environment and then the descendants remaining there forever. The distribution of both light-skinned and dark-skinned peoples would appear to span a wide diversity of physical climates.
What about the use of racial labels? These are often, regrettably, of inaccurate application. For example, the term "African-American" ignores the fact that Africa is a continent, not a race, and it therefore includes many divergent peoples, including Arabs and Berbers of North Africa and Dutch Afrikaans whites of South Africa, as well as the darker-skinned denizens of the African continent elsewhere. Also, the word "Hispanic" cannot denote a race. It merely denotes a language, spoken by persons of considerable variety of skin color.
In short, it is extremely difficult to clearly delineate, for government legal purposes, one racial group from another. The best socio-political solution to the dilemma is to adhere to the U.S. Constitution 14th amendment, and deny the claims of any creditor race or debtor race existing in the United States. Under the law, race should not matter.
There are a few embarrassing proverbial "elephants in the living room" on the topic of race. Why do African-Americans dominate the sports scene, while East Asians and Jews almost uniformly excel head-and-shoulders above everybody else in academia? But given that physical and intellectual supremacies can be used for wicked and evil as well as for virtuous purposes, we need not give the topic more than superficial pause for reflection.
-Lawrence K. Marsh
Theory of Evolution: A Musician Replies
Evolutionists postulate the historic existence of an ever-upward progression in complexity and sophistication of animal life, in the which the later stage of organism development has better capabilities and adaptive powers than do earlier stages of animal life.
It is not until we reach the evolutionary stage of birds that true music is discernable. Crickets chirp and tree-toads ribbit, but those sounds do not have distinctive patterns of varied and definite pitches called songs. Birds have a limited repertoire of songs relating to biological survivability, e.g. mating calls and meeting challenges of aviary competitors.
Then, we have whales and dolphins--sea mammals--naturally-equipped with in-born sonar, to communicate for similar biological purposes through sound waves of definite wave-length frequency: a music of sorts.
If what evolutionists say is true about the ever-upward improvements in animal organisms as they evolve up the ladder, we should detect concommitant improvements in music-making capacities, as animals improve. But evidence for this purpose is singularly lacking: unlike sea-mammals, land mammals have no-such musical capacity.
The music-making capacity of birds and sea-mammals relates to biological necessity. But in higher mammalian stages, the music-making capacity totally disappears, suggesting the end of music's indispensability for biological survival.
Man's allegedly-closest relatives, apes and monkeys, perhaps could be taught to relate aural musical pitch to written music notation on a musical staff, but they totally lack man's power to re-arrange the notes in an infinite variety of ways, to originate the creation of new music. Man alone possesses this capacity, despite it being unnecessary to his biological survival.
What purpose does man's musical capacity serve, if not biological survival? God said, "Let us create a man in Our image", i.e. endow him with a creative power far beyond that of all other animals. In the music-making capacity, then, man represents a quantum leap above all other animals. Evolutionists have no explanation for this sudden quantum leap of man above monkeys and apes, thus opening to question the validity of their claim of constant progressively-upward evolution.
When monkeys play the cello as well as I do, then will I believe in evolution!
-Lawrence K. Marsh
It is not until we reach the evolutionary stage of birds that true music is discernable. Crickets chirp and tree-toads ribbit, but those sounds do not have distinctive patterns of varied and definite pitches called songs. Birds have a limited repertoire of songs relating to biological survivability, e.g. mating calls and meeting challenges of aviary competitors.
Then, we have whales and dolphins--sea mammals--naturally-equipped with in-born sonar, to communicate for similar biological purposes through sound waves of definite wave-length frequency: a music of sorts.
If what evolutionists say is true about the ever-upward improvements in animal organisms as they evolve up the ladder, we should detect concommitant improvements in music-making capacities, as animals improve. But evidence for this purpose is singularly lacking: unlike sea-mammals, land mammals have no-such musical capacity.
The music-making capacity of birds and sea-mammals relates to biological necessity. But in higher mammalian stages, the music-making capacity totally disappears, suggesting the end of music's indispensability for biological survival.
Man's allegedly-closest relatives, apes and monkeys, perhaps could be taught to relate aural musical pitch to written music notation on a musical staff, but they totally lack man's power to re-arrange the notes in an infinite variety of ways, to originate the creation of new music. Man alone possesses this capacity, despite it being unnecessary to his biological survival.
What purpose does man's musical capacity serve, if not biological survival? God said, "Let us create a man in Our image", i.e. endow him with a creative power far beyond that of all other animals. In the music-making capacity, then, man represents a quantum leap above all other animals. Evolutionists have no explanation for this sudden quantum leap of man above monkeys and apes, thus opening to question the validity of their claim of constant progressively-upward evolution.
When monkeys play the cello as well as I do, then will I believe in evolution!
-Lawrence K. Marsh
Culturally Incorrect
Why is it we have a supposed "culture war" going on in America, and yet the main topic discussed in this war is politics? As a musician who has played the violoncello for most of the sixty-plus years of his life, I would like to discuss the issue of the music current in our society, and its impact on our culture.
It is to be granted that we have no objective way of evaluating the cultural and moral value of any piece of music. That is a matter for the listener to discern. Nevertheless, I contend that music can be discerned as either godly or ungodly by its musical content, as well as by any words which might be associated with it(if it is vocal music). The Bible tells us "God is not the author of confusion"(I Corinthians 14:33), and during the European Classical era of music composition, from 1700 through 1900, composers wrote their music according to definite and limited rules of musical texture. Also during that time, musical concerts were often performed in Christian churches.
Since the Bible quotes God as saying, "Let us create a man in Our image", man was created with the mirror-image of creative power unmatched by any other animal species. Music was performed in churches during these two centuries to celebrate man's God-given creative powers. The music was created to be aesthetically pleasing both to God and to men, in keeping with the notion of honoring God. Insofar as God is not anthropomorphic, but a Spirit, music could be instrumental, as well as vocal, and did not have to contain word-lyrics to be qualified as playable in churches.
Franky Schaeffer, son of the famous theologian Dr. Francis Schaeffer, wrote a book called "Addicted to Mediocrity", in the which, among other things, he chronicles the cultural down-slide of music after 1900, and attributes it to a shift in attitude of the Christian church towards music at that time. Specifically, the church rulers insisted that unless a piece of music overtly propagandizes for the Christian faith for its lyrics, the performance of such music of the Classic stamp was no longer welcome in the Christian church. Thus eliminated from the church was all music composed originally for instruments. All too many churches today continue to follow this hard-line restriction on musical performance within their four walls.
After 1900, many instrumentalist musicians felt no longer welcome in the Christian church, as the church boycotted their genre of music-making. Today, there exists a tragic spiritual disconnect between many very capable instrumentalists, and the Christian church. As one flagrant example of this, I have a recording of G.F. Handel's famous "Messiah". The recording was made by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and the Philadelphia Orchestra. QUESTION: Why did the Mormon church have to "farm out" the orchestral function to a secular orchestra, all the while having its own choir? Why would the Mormon church not have enough competent instrumentalists within its own ranks, to form its own accompanying orchestra? Sadly, this same picture prevails at most other Christian churches around the nation, i.e. magnificently-big choirs, but little or no instrumental orchestra within their own church ranks to accompany the choir. Today, I belong to a Baptist church which has existed for 185 years. It has a very fine choir, but only a small fledgling orchestra. Why is this?
I also have many friends in the music world, and belong to a local amateur musical club called "Music Makers". Unlike myself, many of my instrumentalist musical colleagues hold the Christian church and its Bible in abject contempt. I suspect the reason for this spiritual disconnect goes back to the break between the two camps at around 1900.
After 1900, musical composers gradually expanded the rules of musical composition, and abandoned the notion that the purpose of music is to be spiritually-uplifting in order to honor God. Instead, composers strove to create a "shock-effect" in the audience, in utter rebellion against God. The apostle Paul wrote in his letter to the Phillipians, 4:8: "whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest...if there be any virtue and if there be any praise, THINK ON THESE THINGS." Such was the under-girding of musical composition before 1900, but not for long after it.
Today, the Christian church seeks to gain converts, but appears to have a spiritual blind-spot towards the musical down-hill slide in our cultural world today. Disapointingly, many so-called "conservatives" in the news media are also not addressing this cultural issue. Today, we are told that one form of music is "just as good as another", and to claim any superiority of music stemming from the Christian cultural perspective is viewed as "politically incorrect"--even as the Christian church today is viewed by our atheistic secular society as being "politically incorrect". Sadly, I as both a Christian and a devoted musician who also loves music for its own sake--even if it does not overtly propagandize for the Christian church--am forced to say to both the Christian and musical camps: "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways...for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts". Isaiah 55:8-9. I seek to put an end to this spiritual disconnect between the Christian and musical worlds, and make all musicians who would come to Jesus Christ and accept Him as their saviour to feel truly welcome in His church once more, even as music was played in churches before 1900 to celebrate man's God-given creative musical powers.
-Lawrence K. Marsh
It is to be granted that we have no objective way of evaluating the cultural and moral value of any piece of music. That is a matter for the listener to discern. Nevertheless, I contend that music can be discerned as either godly or ungodly by its musical content, as well as by any words which might be associated with it(if it is vocal music). The Bible tells us "God is not the author of confusion"(I Corinthians 14:33), and during the European Classical era of music composition, from 1700 through 1900, composers wrote their music according to definite and limited rules of musical texture. Also during that time, musical concerts were often performed in Christian churches.
Since the Bible quotes God as saying, "Let us create a man in Our image", man was created with the mirror-image of creative power unmatched by any other animal species. Music was performed in churches during these two centuries to celebrate man's God-given creative powers. The music was created to be aesthetically pleasing both to God and to men, in keeping with the notion of honoring God. Insofar as God is not anthropomorphic, but a Spirit, music could be instrumental, as well as vocal, and did not have to contain word-lyrics to be qualified as playable in churches.
Franky Schaeffer, son of the famous theologian Dr. Francis Schaeffer, wrote a book called "Addicted to Mediocrity", in the which, among other things, he chronicles the cultural down-slide of music after 1900, and attributes it to a shift in attitude of the Christian church towards music at that time. Specifically, the church rulers insisted that unless a piece of music overtly propagandizes for the Christian faith for its lyrics, the performance of such music of the Classic stamp was no longer welcome in the Christian church. Thus eliminated from the church was all music composed originally for instruments. All too many churches today continue to follow this hard-line restriction on musical performance within their four walls.
After 1900, many instrumentalist musicians felt no longer welcome in the Christian church, as the church boycotted their genre of music-making. Today, there exists a tragic spiritual disconnect between many very capable instrumentalists, and the Christian church. As one flagrant example of this, I have a recording of G.F. Handel's famous "Messiah". The recording was made by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and the Philadelphia Orchestra. QUESTION: Why did the Mormon church have to "farm out" the orchestral function to a secular orchestra, all the while having its own choir? Why would the Mormon church not have enough competent instrumentalists within its own ranks, to form its own accompanying orchestra? Sadly, this same picture prevails at most other Christian churches around the nation, i.e. magnificently-big choirs, but little or no instrumental orchestra within their own church ranks to accompany the choir. Today, I belong to a Baptist church which has existed for 185 years. It has a very fine choir, but only a small fledgling orchestra. Why is this?
I also have many friends in the music world, and belong to a local amateur musical club called "Music Makers". Unlike myself, many of my instrumentalist musical colleagues hold the Christian church and its Bible in abject contempt. I suspect the reason for this spiritual disconnect goes back to the break between the two camps at around 1900.
After 1900, musical composers gradually expanded the rules of musical composition, and abandoned the notion that the purpose of music is to be spiritually-uplifting in order to honor God. Instead, composers strove to create a "shock-effect" in the audience, in utter rebellion against God. The apostle Paul wrote in his letter to the Phillipians, 4:8: "whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest...if there be any virtue and if there be any praise, THINK ON THESE THINGS." Such was the under-girding of musical composition before 1900, but not for long after it.
Today, the Christian church seeks to gain converts, but appears to have a spiritual blind-spot towards the musical down-hill slide in our cultural world today. Disapointingly, many so-called "conservatives" in the news media are also not addressing this cultural issue. Today, we are told that one form of music is "just as good as another", and to claim any superiority of music stemming from the Christian cultural perspective is viewed as "politically incorrect"--even as the Christian church today is viewed by our atheistic secular society as being "politically incorrect". Sadly, I as both a Christian and a devoted musician who also loves music for its own sake--even if it does not overtly propagandize for the Christian church--am forced to say to both the Christian and musical camps: "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways...for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts". Isaiah 55:8-9. I seek to put an end to this spiritual disconnect between the Christian and musical worlds, and make all musicians who would come to Jesus Christ and accept Him as their saviour to feel truly welcome in His church once more, even as music was played in churches before 1900 to celebrate man's God-given creative musical powers.
-Lawrence K. Marsh
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Is America a Christian or a Judeo-Christian Country?
There can be no doubt that the Jews have made outstanding contributions to the American scene in science, technology and in various cultural endeavours as well. But what about America's theological and ideological under-pinnings: Christian, or Judaeo-Christian?
Firstly, the historic fact is not even one Jew signed either the Declaration of Independence or the U.S. Constitution. Not one!
According to the book, Judaism's Strange Gods, by Michael Hoffman II, the Jewish Talmud--the main book of the Jewish faith today--contains ideas and doctrines blatantly-inimical to Bible teachings of both the Old and New Testaments. Here are a few samples:
Sanhedrin 90a: Those who read the New Testament will have no portion in the world to come.
Sanhedrin 116a: Jews must destroy the books of the Christians, i.e. the New Testament.
Abodah Zarah 22a-22b: Gentiles prefer sex with cows.
Baba Kamma 113a: Jews may use lies to circumvent Gentiles.
Abodah Zarah 36b: Gentile girls are in a state of filth from birth.
Sanhedrin 57a: A Jew need not pay a Gentile wages owed him for work. What a Jew steals from a Gentile, he may keep.
Baba Mezia 24a: If a Jew finds an object lost by a Gentile, he needs not return it to him.
Gittin 57a: Jesus is in hell, being boiled in hot excrement.
Menahoth 43b-44a: A Jewish man must say this prayer daily: "Thank you God, for not making me a Gentile, a woman or a slave."
Baba Mezia 59b: A clever Jewish rabbi bested God in a debate. God admitted the defeat.
Are these the ideas our nation's founders looked to, to draw up our Constitution and establish our nation otherwise? If you are repulsed by these statements from the Talmud, I hope you will then forever abandon any notion that America, at least in its founding ideology, is a "Judaeo-Christian" nation.
Firstly, the historic fact is not even one Jew signed either the Declaration of Independence or the U.S. Constitution. Not one!
According to the book, Judaism's Strange Gods, by Michael Hoffman II, the Jewish Talmud--the main book of the Jewish faith today--contains ideas and doctrines blatantly-inimical to Bible teachings of both the Old and New Testaments. Here are a few samples:
Sanhedrin 90a: Those who read the New Testament will have no portion in the world to come.
Sanhedrin 116a: Jews must destroy the books of the Christians, i.e. the New Testament.
Abodah Zarah 22a-22b: Gentiles prefer sex with cows.
Baba Kamma 113a: Jews may use lies to circumvent Gentiles.
Abodah Zarah 36b: Gentile girls are in a state of filth from birth.
Sanhedrin 57a: A Jew need not pay a Gentile wages owed him for work. What a Jew steals from a Gentile, he may keep.
Baba Mezia 24a: If a Jew finds an object lost by a Gentile, he needs not return it to him.
Gittin 57a: Jesus is in hell, being boiled in hot excrement.
Menahoth 43b-44a: A Jewish man must say this prayer daily: "Thank you God, for not making me a Gentile, a woman or a slave."
Baba Mezia 59b: A clever Jewish rabbi bested God in a debate. God admitted the defeat.
Are these the ideas our nation's founders looked to, to draw up our Constitution and establish our nation otherwise? If you are repulsed by these statements from the Talmud, I hope you will then forever abandon any notion that America, at least in its founding ideology, is a "Judaeo-Christian" nation.
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